Raising Girls in a Misogynistic Culture - Page 4

[liberal_chick]

Since my guy started school, he's come home with the concept of "boy colors" and "girl colors." Which I hate b/c this entire summer his favorite color has been pink. He told me the (very dark) purple double stroller I got for ds2 and ds3 had girl colors on it.

[beanma]

I just picked up a book recommended on another thread here called, Girls Will Be Girls by JoAnn Deak. I've only read the first chapter, but so far I'm really liking it.

It's a fine line to walk to empower girls to make their own choices, but at the same time point out what other (misogynistic, sexist, predatory, etc) people may think of those choices, like a young girl taking her shirt off at the park, etc.

I went to Target yesterday and was disappointed to see the clothes in the girls' section this go round. Target changes their stock pretty drastically pretty quickly and sometimes I find decent stuff there, but this time there was a whole lotta black lace and kinda sexy-goth looking stuff. I fumbled to explain to my kids why I didn't like some of the clothes. We got new underwear, though!

[minkajane]

Speak of the devil, I saw an example of what we've been discussing today. DS was playing with a little boy (about 4yo) at Toys R Us. They ran over to a display of toys and DS started pushing the buttons on a talking baby doll. Immediately the boy grabbed his hand and said, "No, that's a girl toy!" and dragged him to the train set. I said something about there not being girls-only toys and boys can like dolls, but I don't think the boys were listening and the mom just rolled her eyes. It's so frustrating!

[edytais]

I'm with you all... I think clothes in stores are just awful for girls. All sexy etc.
I have a 10 year old who is on a small side and being pressured by her friends' PARENTS!!!! to shave her legs. WTF???? for? She looks like an 8 year old, has no boobs, plays with toys like a little kid..... why in a world would she have to shave her legs?? What is wrong with people? Then they are shocked at the number of girls falling victim to pedophilia.

Minkajane....come and play with my ds4. They will have a blast dressing up as princesses, playing with dolls, making girly crafts
My ds somehow doesn't get too influenced by his boy friends and loves to play girly stuff with his sisters (7 and 10 year olds). They all play boy/girl toys.... and know them as Toys (scratch the boy girl stuff). It's sad that people put their kids in narrow boxes and limit their opportunities for exploration before kids get to explore.

My dd7 loves to pretend to be a boy. It's sad we don't know any girls with short hair. she really wanted short hair because it was=being a boy. She decided to get a boy hair cut She looks so good in it. She said it doesn't make her feel like a boy and she is still curious what it's like to be a boy. So..... she wore boyish clothes (meaning no flowers, pink or purple etc..). She wasn't satisfied until some guy called her "BUDDY". She was so happy she fooled him. However, we were reluctant to let her go to the lake or pool in swim trunks not because I think there is something wrong with it, but what some very conservative people might think. I would hate to have child services knocking on my door. however, she got to wear them

Gosh, how I wish everybody around me would stop trying to turn my girls into little princesses (or worse yet....little miss peagant) and my boy into tough Mr mean

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by edytais

I'm with you all... I think clothes in stores are just awful for girls. All sexy etc.
I have a 10 year old who is on a small side and being pressured by her friends' PARENTS!!!! to shave her legs. WTF???? for? She looks like an 8 year old, has no boobs, plays with toys like a little kid..... why in a world would she have to shave her legs?? What is wrong with people? Then they are shocked at the number of girls falling victim to pedophilia.

Bolding mine. I really, really agree with the spirit of your post -- except for the part that I bolded. I don't think pedophilia has anything to do with what little girls are wearing or how much or how little hair they have on their legs.

Of course, maybe you could say that the mentality of the people who are pushing little girls to shave, etcetera, is that of a pedophile.

[mammal_mama]

I wanted to share some of our positive update here.

Since the playground bullying we've been dealing with seems at least partly related to the fact that I support my girls' freedom to be active and rambunctious, and to get dirty and not be concerned about keeping their legs together, the stuff we've been learning and the positive results we've been getting seem just as applicable to this thread as they do to "Claiming Our Neighborhoods."

Someone on the other thread posted a link to an awesome article (which also has links to an awesome site where we've been reading). Here's the first link: http://wondertime.go.com/learning/ar...our-child.html

Anyhow, I'm realizing that sexism is actually a form of bullying, so these articles are great for equipping my girls for dealing with that, too.

Today my 10yo was hanging upside down on one of the gymnastics bars, practicing swinging by her knees and jumping, in the hopes that she'll eventually land on her feet...

And a 10yo boy who is part of the bullying group came up to her, and each time she swung her head up he was looking into her face saying "You're dusty" and she just kept calmly saying, "That's nice" and going on with what she was doing until he moved on.

I could see him standing there but was too far away to hear the interchange (she told me about it later), and rather than rushing to be involved, I had just watched to make sure that he didn't make any physical contact with dd.

I feel very proud of dd and she seems to feel pretty proud of herself, too.

By the way, the "dusty" thing is kind of one of the ways that this group likes to make fun of my dd, along with commenting that she wears the same clothes a lot, swings with her legs apart, etcetera ...

Some folks may not see this stuff as directly sexist, but I find it hard to believe that they'd target a boy for these same characteristics, so I DO feel that we are combating sexism as well as bullying by being ourselves and choosing not to get ruffled any more by their comments.

As more and more time passes without them being able to create the "ruffle" affect in us, they seem to be trying less and less. I'm hoping these same principles can be applied to our sexist society at large