As a feminist, Annie Ridout is aware that gender differences are fallacy and yet as a mother – of both a daughter and a son – she finds herself succumbing to binary expectations. Here, she shares evidence of it all being a load of bollocks…
When my daughter was born, my first baby, I opted for a mostly gender neutral wardrobe. I was vehemently opposed to frilly pink dresses – preferring white or colourful cotton clothes: harem trousers, babygrows, leggings. It felt important to me that I gave her options rather than instilling a notion of girls being ‘pretty in pink’ – and not much beyond that.
She started walking at 15 months – on the later end of the scale; some babies walk at nine months – but began talking earlier than other kids her age. On paper, she began to fit into the gender stereotypes: girls talk, boys walk. And when she started nursery, and was surrounded by girls in pink – guess what? She wanted to wear pink too. Soon she’d also developed a love of dolls and My Little Pony.
Two and a half years after her birth, I had a son. Again, I was opposed to stereotypically masculine clothes – avoiding anything blue, or with tractors or dinosaurs on. I favoured white or colourful cotton clothes: harem trousers, knitted jumpers. He wore a lot of his sister’s hand-me-downs (including a green cardi with flowery buttons).
At around 10 months, he was standing up and seemed keen to walk. I started to think: wow, there really is something in this. He’s much more physical than his sister was. But he didn’t start walking. He crawled at 10 months, like his sister, and as he approaches 15 months, he still isn’t walking. He stands, he crawls like a ninja – but he can’t walk.
He’s very verbal: he points and understands words and is desperate to speak. My guess is that he’ll be similarly vocal. He’ll be yapping away like his sister was. It makes sense that both children would talk more than walk: my husband and I love sitting around talking. We spend a lot more time doing that than running around the park.
We were in the pub yesterday with our friends who have similarly aged children, but two girls. Their daughter, who’s in fact two months younger than my son, has been walking for a few weeks. Again, this throws the idea that girls aren’t interested in walking out the window. And her sister was an early walker, too.
The only aspect of my son’s character that remotely fits the gender stereotype is that he loves climbing: he’ll mount the table in seconds, he scrambles onto chairs, and staircase ascension is his favourite past-time. But his sister was keen to climb stairs at his age, too. And now, he watches her on the stepladder – so it’s no surprise that he’s keen to follow suit.
But what he also loves to do is snuggle up with teddies. He surrounds himself with animals and kisses them, cuddles them, lays them out, sniffs them, shoves them under my nose for me to sniff. He’s affectionate with me, too. He loves to nestle in and lie still, his cheek on my chest. We go to the pub and he’ll sit on my lap – eating snacks, playing with a toy; just like his girl pals – and, in fact, often for longer.
I remember meeting a mother at a playgroup a few years ago, when my daughter was about two. This woman’s daughter was darting around the place; up the climbing frame, down the slide. We laughed at the idea that boys are active and girls like sitting around and playing with dolls. She said that she had been just like her daughter, as a child.
There are multiple issues with gender expectations.
One issue is that perpetuating the notion that boys are strong and active, and that these are masculine traits, says to girls: you cannot do these things. You can’t be strong and powerful. It suggests that a boy who doesn’t feel naturally inclined to whizz around the playground and get involved in rough and tumble is somehow failing, or weak.
And telling girls that they like dolls and sitting still places them as passive. We’re putting them in the role of carer and nurturer. This then suggests that boys can’t have these traits – and if they do, they’re ‘girly’. This is used as an insult. And that, in itself is insulting. Why is it bad to be girly; to be like a girl?
Girls that aren’t ‘girly’ are framed as ‘tomboys’ – which isn’t exactly a compliment. Really, we expect girls to be ‘girly’. That’s more appropriate. But we’ve been told that ‘girly’ is a crap thing to be, which means girls are failing from birth, by virtue of having a vagina. To behave ‘like a girl’ is to be useless; wimpish; pathetic.
Another major issue with gender expectations is that it encourages parents-to-be to fixate on the sex of their unborn baby. A mother might want a girl that she can sit and play with; dress up. A father might like the idea of a boy to run around with and play football. However, this may not happen. Your son might not like football. Your daughter might not like fashion.
And if they do fit in with the stereotype, it’s not necessarily because their physical make-up or mental capacity has facilitated it; it’s because we expect and therefore encourage these behaviours. As the mother of both a daughter and a son, I know this to be true. I’m a feminist, and I’m aware of all this, and yet I play along. It’s so hard not to.
But as we edge closer to 15 months, and my son still isn’t walking, I feel strangely pleased. I’m pleased that just because he’s a boy, it doesn’t mean he’s more physically able or stronger. It is perfect evidence, to me, that these gender expectations are so wildly unaligned with reality. It reminds me to treat him as an individual, not as a boy.
You may have a girl who is calmer and plays with dolls. But I have a little secret to share: she’ll only play with them if you have given them to her. You may have a son who likes football but again: only if you give him a football to kick. My son doesn’t have one and so doesn’t kick one around. But as I said earlier, he does play with dolls.
It’s easy to stick with traditional ideas about what is means to be ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ but this hinders both sexes. Girls and boys need to feel free to experiment and enjoy different activities and emotions, without being told they’re failing by not fitting with our expectations. We all need to work a lot harder at reducing this pressure. Me included.
What do you think: are girls and boys innately different when it comes to physical ability, emotions and interests; or is this down to conditioning?