Girl vs. Girly

So, the thing is... Ana is a girl.

It didn't JUST dawn on me that she's female. I've been thinking a lot about the whole issue of gender roles lately. A friend who is a second-grade teacher wrote about a new student --a boy -- in her class who comes to class with his fingernails painted, sometimes wearing jewelry, and was overheard to say that he wished his name was “Brittany.” She is fairly unfazed by this but some of her colleagues took great offense. One teacher was so incensed that she announced her intention to take this boy aside and teach him “how boys act.” I thought about how sad it is that we're all so easily threatened by people who behave outside the norm, even children who are trying to figure out who they are. After I got over my initial horror that an EDUCATOR is so unenlightened, I started to wonder what it is that she would tell him. I mean, how DO boys act, exactly?

This gender stuff is a hot topic with me because my children are girls. I think that raising girls is harder for ME. Maybe because of what T. Berry Brazelton calls the “ghosts from my nursery.” See, I was one of those eating disorder girls and my idea of sheer hell would be watching my daughters go through that kind of struggle. Eating disorders aren't unique to girls anymore but the majority of cases still befall females. It's really no wonder when you see the messages directed at girls by our culture. Everything from movies like Cinderella (being saved by some Prince who is captivated by her BEAUTY,) to toys (have you ever walked down the aisle of “girl” toys at one of those huge toy stores? Wall-to-wall sexism, craftily wrapped in pink so that there's no mistaking who the target market is.) to baby clothes -- all offering the message that little girls are dainty and ladylike and grow up to be dainty and soft-spoken, rail-thin women who will wear the most revealing outfits that Madison Avenue can create, but never outshine their male counterparts.

Study after study shows that the messages aimed at girls in this society are harming their self-esteem, and leading to a lessening of their quality of life. For example, one study found that self-esteem in girls peaks at age nine. NINE! Another study found that 69% of grade school boys and 60% of grade school girls responded that they were "happy the way I am". The same study found 46% of high school boys and only 29% of high schools girls reported being "happy the way I am". Overall, girls’ self-esteem dropped at a rate three times that of boys! Low levels of self-esteem are linked to increased rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide and eating disorders in both adolescents and adults (How Schools Shortchange Girls, 1992; Melpomene Institute, 1996).

So, how do we go about combating that? So far, I've been pretty good at sheltering Ana from the negative messages in the media. We talk about achievements by women and we've emphasized that we admire strong competent women. We so carefully screen what she watches on television and she's never been to a movie. We never say things like “Smile pretty!” or “Act like a little lady,” because we would never say those things to a boy. We are careful how we talk about Ana's physical appearance and although we have the same battles over meals that every family has, we try to talk about food in terms of FUEL and our bodies in terms of STRENGTH. Ana plays dress-up like any kid, but we have provided her with a firefighter's hat, a construction hardhat, a doctor's kit and some very strange animal towels. Her role-playing is pretty much a product of the broad spectrum of cultural influences to which she's been exposed (especially due to her four college professor grandparents!) She is equally likely to want to be a character from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute as she is to be a Sesame Street character. And for two whole days, she was insistent that she be NAPOLEON for Halloween. (Don’t ask.)

Ana's not a girly girl; she's not into pink and bows and daintiness. But I have to admit, I don't know if that's because of her nature or because I pushed her the other way, in a sort of reverse gender bias, because she's not a TOMBOY, either. Actually, my husband says he doesn't think we've tried to steer her in any direction. He thinks we've just gotten excited about the things SHE'S gotten excited about. And she's very excited about NASA and space and Thomas the Tank Engine, things traditionally more attractive to boys. She's decided she wants her room painted blue and decorated with trains and I'm not going to say “no” because our society tells us that's not what girls should want. I'm not at all saying there is anything wrong with pink and bows and daintiness --I'm just wondering if I purposefully steered my girl away from them in some weird kind of backlash. And how would I have responded if she HAD been a girly-girl?

But you know, it's been really easy so far. Other than the fact that her doctor's office gives out Barbie stickers (granted, Barbie is depicted as a doctor and there are multi-racial Barbies as models but still), and that we weren't able to find any sneakers for GIRLS with trains on them, most of her messages about being a girl have been incredibly positive “you can do anything you want to do” kinds of messages.

But it starts so early. This past Wednesday, we went on a field trip with Ana's class to a Pumpkin Patch. The woman who owned the pumpkin patch gave absolutely the most politically incorrect talk to three-year-olds that I have ever heard. First of all she didn't modify her spiel from the talk she gives much older kids, so there was a lot of talk about children's costumes catching on fire from improperly treated pumpkins. She also asked for two “big, strong boys” to come up and hold a pumpkin for her (like there is any differences between boys and girls at this age in terms of strength) and then she said that every girl's favorite pumpkin was always the “Cinderella pumpkin.” It went on and on. I would have been rather incensed except, well, Ana has never even HEARD of Cinderella.

See, I haven't really introduced Ana to Disney stories because one after another, they show some beautiful girl who gets in trouble and gets rescued by a handsome prince. I was going on about this to my friend Nicolette over lunch the other day and she threw back her head and laughed at me. (She has two girls, too.) She said it just never occurred to her to see Disney from that perspective. Maybe I really AM reading too much into this!

The thing is that I feel like I was just like Ana. I was one of those kids who lived in my head. I was always really advanced academically. I, too, could read at age three. (Had to keep up with those older siblings.) My mom says I was the cockiest little girl. She said I marched right on the bus without a backward glance while she stood in the doorway of our house in tears as she watched her youngest go off to first grade.

So, I'm not sure what happened. By the time I graduated from high school, I was totally disenfranchised and bored. I chose my extremely large university based on the fact that I could blend in and be anonymous and I did just that. Call me crazy but I don't think anonymity is exactly a very healthy goal of one's college career.

Don't get me wrong, I am blissfully happy with my life NOW. It's just that I don't think I ever really reached my potential, and I went through some really miserable years filled with self-doubt and grief over that. I don't KNOW that my decreasing self-esteem was a product of gender bias, but I DO know that I don't want my girls to ever suffer that. I wouldn't my girls to EVER self-limit themselves.

I guess I kind of feel like they came to me so perfect and so whole and I just want them to be able to stay that way. In our increasingly exploitative society, the stakes are so much higher now for girls who are vulnerable, who have been told that they are LESS in some way.

And if there is one thing Ana is NOT, it's LESS in any way. She's a girl and she's simply SPECTACULAR and that's reason to celebrate!

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Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (3.5) and Jane (1). She lives in Austin, Texas and she's looking for a new Pumpkin Patch.