March 13, 2006 at 22:45:15

The Next Wave: Feminism in the 21st Century, Part II

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Katherine Brengle (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

The girl section of the store had an array of items, including: Barbie dolls, other baby dolls (complete with accessories like strollers, bottles, and other real-life baby necessities), dress-up clothes (princess gowns, high heels, play make-up), kitchen play-sets with stoves and miniature fake food, and my personal favorite, a genuine Mr. Clean play mop and accessories. Everything was pink and purple and pretty and delicate and perfectly designed to create the next generation of domesticated females. I decided to walk across the aisle to the boy section, and the difference was nothing short of appalling. I scanned down the shelves loaded with Home Depot toy tool sets, trucks and cars and motorcycles, toy guns and swords, action figures, and sporting goods and shook my head in disgust.

One of my good male friends was there with us, and I commented about it to him. He looked at me and said, Well, girls just like that stuff.

I asked him, Why do you think they like it? Do you think they like it because it just comes naturally to them to want to pretend to mop the floor? Or do you think that maybe girls are indoctrinated by society, just like boys, to 'like' certain things, so that they will fit properly into the roles that society has created for them?

He told me he had never thought about it like that.

For my part, I steered my daughter clear of the Mr. Clean mop set and the Little Mommy baby doll and toward the soccer balls.

So, my position (which was solidified by this shopping experience) is that we give our little boys guns and knives and tools to play with because that's what our parents did and what their parents did and we assume it is just the right way and will have no long-term effect on them. We give our little girls toys that teach them to be pretty and subservient and tame, and then we are surprised when they are abused by men when they enter the real world. And we wonder why men abuse them, all the while ignoring the fact that we have taught our sons that doing this is okay.

When a boy hits a little girl on the playground, and she comes to tell us, we laugh and tell her it's okay and it just means he likes her. This response trains our daughters to believe that violence from men is fair-play, and that if men are violent with them, it means that they are loved.

By joining together, we can stop this cycle that teaches young boys how to be men by being aggressive and violent and through this, we can seriously reduce the incidence of sexual assault in the United States. We can stop teaching our daughters that violence is acceptable and that their interests should revolve around cooking, cleaning, and child rearing.

If we can teach our kids that violence is never acceptable, that men and women (boys and girls) are equals in life, and that archaic gender-roles are limiting and dangerous, we can really find out the limits of their potential. We can let them grow into the people they want to be, instead of the people we want them to be.

(To be continued...)

1 | 2