My son is four years old and enrolled in a local Pre-K four hours a day, five days a week. I try to pick him up after lunch before naptime everyday, but most days I fail and get there right in the middle of lunch, disrupting the whole thing and causing a ruckus.
Today when I walked in, the kids were still at the lunch tables and I (not-so) silently cursed myself for showing up early again. After ignoring the teachers giving me the stink-eye for showing up during lunch (Which, in my defense, is never over at the same time — and they immediately go lie down for naptime, so I have a very small window to get in there and not be a huge distraction. Consistency, teacher. Consistency.), I realized that horror of horrors, they are passing out cupcakes (Right before naptime? Whatever. That’s your bad decision).
It was someone’s birthday.
The cupcakes were Frozen (the movie, not the state of being), and had those little plastic rings with the characters’ faces on them. The teacher went kid to kid with the open bakery clamshell full of red 40, HFCS, and white flour goodness, and asked which character they wanted. Or at least that’s what I thought she was doing. When I paid closer attention, I realized she was actually asking the girls if they wanted Ana or Elsa and the boys if they wanted Olaf, Kristoff, or Sven. The blatant gender stereotyping got a quirk of the eyebrow, but I didn’t say anything.
She was making her way down the line, when one little boy announced who he wanted before she even got to him. He was stoked about it. He knew exactly which character he wanted.
Elsa. He definitely wanted Elsa.
The teacher said, “No you don’t. You want Olaf, Kristoff, or the moose [Sven].” He was visibly crestfallen, his smile gone, *poof*. He was pretty sure he did want Elsa, and now he was confused because she told him he didn’t. It took him a good 25 seconds to decide on Olaf, and he was cool with that decision. He didn’t seem mad, just disappointed and confused. As she was walking away, she chuckled and said, “I have some girls who are gonna have a fit if there’s no more Elsa.”
Telling little boys that what a girl wants is more important than what he wants, strictly because she’s a girl, is going to have the opposite effect. It’s going to teach boys to resent girls, which is where we as a culture are now.
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My initial reaction, like most of the people who heard this story, was anger at the blatant gender stereotyping. The boy should not be shamed for wanting Elsa. He should not be told he has to choose from boy characters only. He should not be told he does not want Elsa, when he clearly does want Elsa.
But there was something more subtle in this interaction that upset me even more. He was told that what he wanted didn’t matter, because there was a chance someone else, in this case a girl, might also want it. His choice was ignored, set aside, just in case.
Not only was he shamed, he was devalued.
As a mother of boys, I find this trend disturbing. Yes, we need to build up our girls. We need to empower them and teach them that they are capable and viable and powerful — that they are smart and that they matter. But we cannot devalue our boys in the process. We cannot tell boys that what they want doesn’t matter and that their opinions are invalid. We cannot empower our girls at the expense of our boys. Building up one while breaking down the other is not the solution.
Our society is not comfortable with this idea. It’s not something we are willing to discuss or acknowledge because it doesn’t fit the narrative of male privilege. Male privilege is real, it does exist, and it is a detriment to everyone who isn’t a white man. These are facts.
But breaking down little boys isn’t the right way to fix it.
Treating little boys as less important, less valuable than little girls isn’t the way to teach girls that they have value. Telling little boys that what a girl wants is more important than what he wants, strictly because she’s a girl, is going to have the opposite effect. It’s going to teach boys to resent girls, which is where we as a culture are now.
Let’s change our dialogue. Let’s change our thought process. Let’s change our behavior. Let’s build up our girls AND our boys, not instead of our boys or at the expense of our boys. Let’s just treat everyone fairly.
Ideally breaking down boys should not be a part of empowering girls but unfortunately empowerment is often seen as a zero sum game where only one group can be empowered. Think about these things. 1. Education. When it comes to supporting girls in education, programs were developed left and right to get girls to go into fields where girls weren’t well represented. That’s fine well and good. However when we see that boys are lagging behind in education the same people that demanded support for girls are basically saying its not a problem and that is the way things are… Read more »
Perhaps I missed something in the article that reflects male privilege?
“Male privilege is real, it does exist, and it is a detriment to everyone who isn’t a white man. These are facts.” As does female privilege, which does exist and is obvious to anyone who isn’t a female. “We cannot tell boys that what they want doesn’t matter and that their opinions are invalid. We cannot empower our girls at the expense of our boys. Building up one while breaking down the other is not the solution. Our society is not comfortable with this idea. It’s not something we are willing to discuss or acknowledge because it doesn’t fit the… Read more »
The answer to the title questions is in many ways yes. As a society we are trying to build up girls by disregarding, suppressing or demonizing boys. You can see it in the media especially. This narrative is pushed directly and indirectly by a lot of groups including some feminist groups. They preach equality when in reality they want to replace a world where men run everything and women are stuck in a corner and told to shut up to a world where women run everything and men are put into a corner and told to shut up. This send… Read more »
To be perfectly honest, I have never seen a message in media that my opinions as a woman matter more than men’s. Infact, quite the opposite. i don’t even think men take women seriously a lot of the times and want to understand or hear us out. Most movies, books, tv shows and history books still predominantly telll men’s stories. Rarely do men consume media that asks them to empathize with women yet most media does regularly ask is to empathize with men and their stories. Women were written out of the history books and both girls and boys everyday… Read more »
Erin im going to be honest, you attitude is part of the problem. While a cupcake is pathetic to you to a small child it could mean a whole lot. I could list the number of times being male put me at disadvantage especially in regards to my mental illness but I doubt you care so I won’t bother. I want gender equality but we don’t get that by the means we’re are currently using.
I will be honest as well, Dan. You are also part of the problem. You ignored absolutely everything I said because I expressed frustration about worrying about a cupcake. How about everything else I said? No comments on the rest of it? No comments on my comment about how I support the fair and equal treatment of men and my long paragraph about how I do that? How do YOU support the fair and equal treatment of women? Do you support and enjoy media that exploits women? No comments about how men still control the fast amount of wealth in… Read more »
@ Erin “I have never seen a message in media that my opinions as a woman matter more than men’s.” I’ve probably seen a hundred instances of people asserting in the media that the world would be a paradise if women ran it or women are better investors, managers, etc. Heck, the BBC just put one out that said women were better coders. They had to make multiple retractions after some MRAs complained, but truth wasn’t actually the goal. They just wanted to get the propaganda out there. I’m surprised you haven’t seen the narrative that women are superior to… Read more »
So, it is apparent that you haven’t been paying much attention to pop culture these days. Movies are full of super tough super human women that beat up 6 or 7 male attackers at the same time. The cops and agents are now always women. The crime drama shows always portray the male as lecherous, and the sexual predator. You never see Female criminals in those crime dramas. Commercials always portray the male as bumbling, a buffoon, an idiot, childlike imbecile that MUST be rescued by his “oh so capable, perfect, super human, intellectually superior, female partner. Anytime pop culture… Read more »
This has been going on for awhile. I think we need to teach our kids to stand up for themselves.