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Editor’s note: The following essay was written by Good Men Project Premium Member Steve Winfield as a comment on the post “When We Gender Our Kids We Often Destroy What’s Human About Them” by Justin Lioi.
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About seven years ago, my son was at my sister’s house for a sleepover with his younger cousins, my nephew and niece. At some point, Nephew (not his real name) fell asleep, and his younger sister convinced my son to help her paint Nephew’s nails neon pink. Nephew awoke the next morning, saw his painted nails and was furious. I got a call.
I drove over there to collect my son. I led him outside and began my obligatory parental lecture. I told him:
“First, don’t you ever mess with someone while they are sleeping and vulnerable. It’s a terribly invasive, abusive violation of his body and a betrayal of his friendship and trust.. and you’re better than that!
“Second, you’re the oldest kid here, and with that comes some responsibility to lead them, to look out for them and steer them away from trouble. They both look up to you, and you failed them.
“Third, you painted his nails, neon pink. Boys don’t wear nail polish, it’s a symbol of femininity, and of all the colors out there, the color pink is probably the biggest symbol of femininity there is. Nephew is not yet a teenager, he is still discovering—and uncertain about—his developing sense of his own masculine identity. What you did was a direct challenge and assault to all that—you might as well have finished the job by writing ‘I’m a girl’ on his forehead. Nephew is 100% within his rights to feel insulted and angry, and you owe him an apology so sincere that he comes to me and tells me that he forgives you. Until then, you’ve lost your computer and PS2.”
I stand by the first and second parts—but the third part is hard to write today. The whole time I was saying it, there was a voice in my head, SCREAMING at me “Hey! There’s something totally wrong with everything you’re saying here!” And, “my” inner voice was shouting back “Yeah? OK, what is it then, because I don’t know!”
When I had first heard about this crisis on the phone, I borrowed a bottle of pink nail polish from a friend. My initial plan was to offer it as an “alternative sentence”—my son could avoid the loss of his electronics by humbling himself to paint his own nails pink for a day. But, that same voice in my head told me that this alternative suffered from the same mystery problem as my “part three” lecture, so I didn’t make the offer, and the bottle stayed in my pocket.
Over the course of the next week, that bottle kept turning up.. in my pocket, on my carseat, back in my pocket, then on my nightstand.. and each time I saw it, I was reminded of my confusion during the lecture. I started trying to solve the puzzle, to think about the assumptions I had made and parroted to my son, trying to identify the fault in what I thought I knew. I also challenged myself – partly as punishment for an offense I could not yet define – to paint my own nails pink, and wear that in public for one week.
It took that whole week to sort out my feelings and the questions this incident had raised. Why don’t boys—and men—wear nail polish? “Because girls do”. Ok.. but girls wear jeans, sweatshirts, hiking boots—lots of things that boys don’t mind wearing—what makes nail polish different? “Well, they’ve never seen other boys or men wearing nail polish, so they associate nail polish with girls and femininity”. Ok.. but so what.. girls can wear ‘boy things’ without a problem, so why should a boy feel ashamed to wear ‘girl things’, how can a few drops of paint be threatening to a boy?
At this point, it started coming together for me. For the first time in my life, I really saw how the social customs that dictate what is “appropriate” for me to wear as a man, are based on a concept of masculinity which is defined largely as “not feminine, because females are delicate, gentile, soft, weak, and generally inferior to males”. I realized that I had unconsciously accepted and followed customs, assumptions, and attitudes that were based on sexist prejudice. I saw that the shame which boys are taught to feel at any suggestion that they might be “girly”, a “sissy”, or worse—that shame is a tool of oppression which society uses to enforce its sexist customs and expectations. And, I saw that by following these customs and expectations, I was unintentionally helping perpetuate and reinforce sexism in our society. I was a raindrop—I was not responsible for the flood, but I was definitely part of it.
As I was thinking through this problem, my own nails (fingers and toes) were still painted pink. And, I was conflicted about this, because when I would look at them, I still felt twinges of shame from the contrast with my prior concept of my masculinity—but I also saw that my hands and feet looked GOOD, they were a little bit “pretty”, and I was surprised to discover that I REALLY LIKED how I looked with nail polish on! I had challenged myself to wear my nail polish in public view—and this was terrifying for me. But, the experience of this fear came with a realization that I was afraid of how others, strangers, would judge me. This was another false premise that I had unconsciously accepted—the idea that the judgments (really, prejudices) of others have the power to define me or my value as a person. I had been conforming to sexist social customs (and denying myself about half of what is good in human experience) in order to earn the meaningless approval of anonymous prejudiced strangers!
So, as I began to see things in this light, I realized that from this point on, I could no longer say that my participation was unconscious or unintentional—my choices at that point were either to begin KNOWINGLY perpetuating sexist customs, or to begin defying them, to ‘be the change I wished to see in the world’. I decided that the change I wished to see, would be a world where all that is worthwhile, good, and fun in life is equally available to and enjoyed by everyone—a world where people judge themselves and others, not for what they wear, but for how they treat and are treated by other people.
So. I chose defiance. I chose to break free of my “comfort zone”, to allow myself to disregard our gendered fashion customs and the prejudices of ignorant strangers. I chose to give myself permission to explore “feminine” things and incorporate them into my life, starting with accepting and embracing the fact that I LOVE having pretty painted fingers and toes! In seven years, my nails have not been naked for more than an hour at a time. From there, I went on to discover that my legs look fantastic in cute skirts and wedge heels. And, it’s not just about clothes. I’ve made a deliberate effort to acknowledge my feelings and to understand the feelings of others, to be a more attentive, considerate listener, and to improve the ways that I treat others. And, honestly, I have never felt healthier, happier, or more whole than I do now—I am the same man I have always been, only so much more so.
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Photo credit: Pixabay
Wow! I am incredibly honored to see my comment turned into its own post!
Also, the actual photo of this event is posted here: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2281975177273&id=1485632142&set=a.2242780717436&source=48 – And I give GoodMenProject permission to use this photo in conjunction with this story. The link is to a Facebook post, where I tell a different story – “I lost a bet”. That was one of two cover stories I had created in case I got static from the general public. One cover story wasn’t enough, I needed two! I had an opportunity to employ the second one in line at Wal Mart, when I overheard a guy whisper to his GF, “only in America”. I could have… Read more »