Gender and My Baby
| March 7, 2011 | Posted by Issa under Counter/Culture, Parenting |
The first family I nannied for had a 3 year old son and an 8 month old daughter when I started. The mom and I had a long conversation one day where she explained that there were innate differences between boys and girls. She said she treated both kids the same, yet there were key differences between them based on gender. I was just getting started learning about childhood development at the time, and I’m sure I didn’t offer much argument. I might have even believed her.
The very next day, I was doing the kids’ laundry, sorting their mixed up clothes into lights and darks. And I noticed that the baby girl’s clothes were entirely lights – whites, pale yellows, and pinks. The dark pile was entirely the boy’s clothes – dark blues, greens, and purples. So you don’t treat your kids any differently, huh? Maybe the laundry is a small thing, but at the time it seemed like a monumentally vivid illustration of a potentially huge problem.
I’ve thought a lot about kids’ clothes since then. The question of strong gendering matters little when I’m the one picking out clothes. I’m unlikely to buy super-frilly dresses or monster truck shirts regardless of the sex of my child. I do like dark blues/green/purples, though, as well as flowery hippie clothes, and I plan to put both on my child. I came up with guidelines for gift items, too, which is, “If you wouldn’t buy it for a girl, please don’t buy it for my boy, or vice versa.” I have at least two friends who dressed their own sons in dresses, so it’s not much of a sticking point in my circle.
The question of toys never seemed too problematic for me, either. I’m unlikely to buy my kid many toys at all until ou is old enough to point and “Want!” I’ve never seen much need for little-kid toys when dirt and rocks and boxes exist. I already own some toddler toys, but they’re pretty universal blocks and puzzle-type stuff.
Years ago when we started trying to conceive, Joshua and I picked out a boy name and a girl name. In the intervening years, we acquired a friend with one of the names, which sent me back to the drawing board. But, an interesting thing happened when I actually stayed pregnant this time. As I contemplated the future-person, it seemed odd to me to choose two different names. There aren’t two potential babies inside me. “If you come out like this, I’ll name you this; if you come out like that, I’ll name you that.” How strange. There’s just the one baby, one person, and planning for such an immediate fork in the road depending on the baby’s genitals seemed really out of place to me. I began to search for one name that suited my idea of this future-person. As I’m sure you can imagine, this narrows the field of possible names considerably, but Joshua and I have found a name that I absolutely adore. (No, you don’t get to hear it yet. I think the baby should be the first one to hear ou’s name.)
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| Not my baby, of course! Photo credit paparutzi |
Thinking over the question of the baby’s name brought a whole new set of ideas to the forefront. Why does everyone immediately ask the sex of a new baby? Why are parents so eager to broadcast the genital status of the child? Why does it matter so much that people urgently seek to discover their baby’s sex months in advance and plan many details of the baby’s new life around the findings? We don’t even know the baby’s sex now, but Joshua and I began to ponder not announcing the sex of our baby to anyone after the birth, either.
This brought up another set of concerns for me. I don’t want to deny the concept of sex and gender, pretending that these things don’t exist. I’m aware that, for example, ignoring race and trying to be “colorblind” helps perpetuate racism, and I wonder if ignoring gender could have unintended consequences as well. I’m aware that children in large groups very rapidly segregate themselves by sex, and while I don’t know to what extent socialization causes this, I know that it’ll come up for my child either way. I’m aware that I live in a highly gender-enforced culture, and I’m afraid to experiment on my child. In other words, I’m just not sure I feel qualified to buck the gender system very much at all. The words “gender-neutral” became a sticking point in my mind, because I know perfectly well that I do not (and my child will not) live in a gender-neutral world. And it’s not even that I want my future baby to be gender-neutral. I just want ou to be whatever ou wants to be.
So I was really glad to run across a post from Arwyn at Raising My Boychick: Raising him purple: a defense of gender neutrality in early childhood. This post expresses so much of my thoughts, that I wish you would read the whole thing (or her whole blog, for that matter). Some of my favorite passages (link and emphasis original):
…While I know my child has a penis and testicles, and apparently lacks a vulva and vagina, I do not know that he is a boy. I may think that he is a boy, it is likely that he is a boy, but just like I do not — and cannot until he informs me — know his sexuality, I do not — and cannot until he informs me — know his gender. He might be a boy. He might be a girl. He might be some variation of genderqueer or otherwise fall midway in the gender spectrum, or outside of it altogether. (And for that matter, he might be a high femme boy or a very butch girl…)
But unless I give him room — psychic and psychological space, if you will — to discover and create these things on his own, I will never know how much of what he does is what he really wants, and how much is what he’s adopted because it’s what he thinks he’s supposed to do and like.
I’m not opposed to gender (which would be about as sensical as being opposed to gravity); I’m just opposed to its imposition on children too young to know better, but not too young to be warped by all the baggage it brings with it. I cannot say it better than this: “Turn down the volume on the gender coding. Respond to the child’s personality. Let your child be who he or she is.” Not gender-free. Just free to be whatever gender they are — whatever that means to them.
That last bit, especially, helps clear up my issue with “gender-neutral”. What I’m looking for is not without gender, but open to gender – this way or that way or something in between or not. Someone in the comments suggests the phrase “gender diverse”, and I was thinking “Yes, yes, yes!” Not gender-neutral, but gender diverse! Ignoring gender seems like it risks narrowing the spectrum of possibilities, when what I’d rather do is embrace a wider range of possibilities.
So what’s the practical application of all of this for me? I really don’t know, of course, until I’m holding that baby in my arms. I’ve chosen a name that’s for my baby, rather than for a gender. Joshua and I don’t really plan to hide our baby’s genitals from other people – others may change ou’s diaper for instance, and we wouldn’t avoid that – but we also don’t plan to come rushing down from the birth with that topic first on our minds. We’re practicing using a non-gendered pronoun so that maybe it’ll be less awkward if we use it for our baby. We might be a little obstinate about revealing the baby’s sex to people who ask. Maybe we’ll give mini-lectures about babies and gender and introduce the new pronoun. Maybe on Tuesdays we’ll say, “She’s a girl,” and on Wednesdays say, “He’s a boy,” and on Saturdays say, “He’s a girl,” and on the other days forget what we said the last time and think it’s all extremely funny.
Maybe I’ll go out and buy some lacy dresses and some race car shirts after all, because the main thing I want to provide for my child is options. Parents sometimes tell their kids, “You can be anything you want to be,” and they mean an astronaut or the president or something like that. I want to say that, too, and mean something much more profound than how my child earns ou’s money.
For children, gender is perhaps the very first fork in the road, and for my child I hope that fork looks like a wide open path.
Well, shit. Now I have to learn to use “zir”. Obviously I agree with alot of what you’re saving, but you know how I loathe gender neutral pronouns. I totally understand the goal, though, and respect it:)
I’ve been using ou as a non-gendered pronoun. I never liked the other options and finally settled on ou. Other people are welcome to use whatever pronouns they like, though. I even like the idea of just switching back and forth between he and she.
I hate the sound of the others, too. How is it pronounced? Googling is mostly sending me to French language things when I ask:)
I’ve been pronouncing it like the word “you”. I don’t know if that’s correct, but it slides right in to my language, and sometimes other people don’t even notice I’ve said something unusual, so that appeals to me.
That is appealing! I hate how artificial the other words feel to me. I’m sure if I’d always said them, I’d be fine with them. So, ou is a “substitute” for he or she? That’s how it’s used?
That’s the important point, though; if you said more non-binary gendered pronouns more often, it would feel less jarring. A lot of people use discomfort with novelty or difference as a legitimate concern, but if it goes unexamined it can all too easily serve to underwrite the status quo and leave other possibilities out.
Oh I get your point and I realized that. That doesn’t seem to solve my general annoyance with it. I usually try to be respectful and call people whatever they want, but I definitely admit to more comfort with he or she than zir.
Ou is supposedly a Middle English word (another reason it appeals to me), but I’ve never found a source talking about its correct usage. I toss it in for everything – he, she, him, her, and use ou’s for his and hers. I have no idea if that’s “correct”.
I like “gender positive” (more positive than most, since you’re open to more possibilities) or “gender expansive” (open to whatever manifestations of gender you might encounter). I can only imagine what an up hill battle it will be, to create an environment in which the at times overwhelming but often unspoken gendered norms of the larger world can be set aside to allow room to find out who your wee one to find out who hir (do you prefer ou, or will any gender neutral pronoun do?) is, but it’s vitally important, and I commend you for making the effort.
I like gender positive or expansive, too! Both of those capture what I was looking for, instead of the “neutral” idea.
I use ou as a non-gendered pronoun, because I like it best and have settled there, but others can use whatever works for them. Ze/zir/hir are familiar to me, and I may even be convinced to switch at some point, since they’re more common.
I love the terms “gender-diverse”. I really dislike gender neutral. Mostly because of to much sci-fi . I disliked thinking of my child as genderless. Because that sounds both boring and oppressive. A little baby is genderless to me, but once I have a kid that period of time will be very short. Your approach seems both freeing, giving as much room as possible for your kid to be who ou is, and reasonable. For me it would be just as bad if not worse to force my kids to be genderless as it would be to force them to be the stereotypical boy/girl.
Though to be honest given my personality I think my children regardless of sex will be more exposed to female gender roles/clothing . I wonder how much affect that will have on their individual development.
When looking at the clothes I’ve already acquired for my baby (and some toddler clothes) they are mostly pretty neutral solid colors, but there are a few hippie dresses with big flowers – definitely read “girl”. While I do think about trying to be open minded when buying things for my kid, I don’t want to try to be artificially 50/50, either. I think it makes the most sense to just be myself, be open to possibilities, and be aware and accepting when the kid is old enough to communicate subtle preferences.
Your choice of clothes makes sense for your tastes, though, which is mostly what it’s about when you’re dealing with a baby and they don’t have their own tastes, yet. You don’t wear alot of bright, flowery dresses:)
I would if I could find them in my size!
I’m sure you could:) I’ve bought some at Rainbow and Dots – both of which have alot of plus sized clothes.
Fascinating post, Issa! I’d never thought about children and gender/sexuality in this way before. You’ve given me a lot to think about (you and Joshua are really good at this, by the way…) and I’m seeing this as a beginning of another shift in my world view.
Arwyn at Raising My Boychick, who I linked to in the post, has lots of posts about kids and gender and other social justice topics. I recommend spending a night browsing around her site!
Love it! As a child, I always wanted to play with the “boy” toys/games and was consistently told I couldn’t because I was a girl. How differently would my road of travel have been would I have been encouraged instead of discouraged? Kudos to the both of you!
Oh, and I have been pronouncing ou as “we”.
Oh, I hate that, when a child is actually denied what they want based on gender. I understand (a little bit) if parents don’t want to try to hard or “be too weird” on the gender thing. But to actually say NO when a child expresses a preference is just horrible.
I’d love to find a usage/pronunciation guide for ou. Someone out there knows more about Middle English and knows the answer, but until then, I’m just making stuff up!
I was denied He-Man toys. I don’t think it was just a gender thing, as I wasn’t allowed She-Ra toys, either. They were “magic” and Jesus doesn’t like magic! I was allowed race cars.
Just heard this half hour radio documentary yesterday: http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/episode/season-5/2011/03/02/season-five-the-commercials-you-grew-up-with-1/ — they talk about how gendered toys really came about in the 60s as a marketing technique to sell more toys. Fascinating.
Fascinating indeed! It’s always interesting to me when things that seem “natural” or like “givens” turn out to be so clearly invented.
See what you did there? Used “they” as a singular gender neutral pronoun!
Okay, maybe you already know about that option, but if not, wanted to put it out there! Most people I know who go by gender-neutral pronouns use singular “they,” which is an easy option since it’s already in English-speakers’ vocabulary. It also has grammatical precedents; you can probably find them by Googling. Shakespeare has apparently used singular “they” in his writing.
That was just bad grammar on my part. I don’t purposefully use they as singular. I’m fine if other people want to; I’m sometimes language-snobby, but not on that one. My main reason for rejecting that as an option is probably political. I like the idea of something new rising into place to say, “Hey, we don’t have to gender everybody!” and singular they doesn’t seem to have that effect.
I definitely grew up in a household and extended family model of girls vs. boys. This is one of those places I have to give both my parents credit where credit is due. If my dad was working on a car, I was out there with him. If my mom was in the kitchen, I was in there with her. Apply to all possibilities of social gender separation.
Their attitude was that of me being an independent person and my gender should not inhibit me from doing what I wanted to do. They took this attitude about learning, sports, art, mechanics etc. Granted, I was a priss, but I would’ve been a priss regardless of my gender.
I really like the idea of gender diversity rather than neutral as well.
I also really like the idea of a name that doesn’t automatically denote gender with its use.
I pronounce “ou” like you minus the y too. I am also trying to be more open to ze and zir as more friends and acquaintances are popping up in both my social circles and my work environment. If I feel stumbly about it, or it comes out sounding unnatural or forced, I switch to just using names directly or the pronoun “they” instead. I have dropped using prefixes like Mr. Mrs. Miss and Ms. almost entirely, unless I have a specific request otherwise.
I am finding that a simple of question of “How would you prefer to be addressed?” helps bridge an unknown gap. It is hard though…as the embedded social habit runs deep.
At work, when a patient asked where are the mens and womens frame, I give them a little rhyme. “Frames are not separated by gender, but by vendor.” It annoys the hell out of some people. Most are incredibly grateful though. Our clientele is so diverse that there is no way we can make an assumption about *any* preference. I got applause one day when a young 20-something male made a comment about my little ditty. He thought it was silly to not separate them. My response was that frames do not have a gender of themselves. People should pick out what they like.
Anyway, strange tangent aside… I really enjoyed reading your post. I look very forward to meeting this little human born into a home of incredible options for growth.
I love the not by gender but by vendor thing! I’d love to see more of that with clothes, too. I saw some awesomely low-slung, hippy looking blue jeans in the men’s section the other day and did a double-take. I’ve got to remember to get out of the women’s section and see the other styles out there.
Surely, you have heard about Pop in Sweden. Pop’s parents decided to raise Pop without disclosing gender. I read about it a couple of years ago. I wonder how it’s progressed: http://www.thelocal.se/20232/20090623/
Oh, and I don’t know if I ever told you this about me or not, but I identify as genderqueer, (thus the gender neutral name Jo) and all things gendered get me in a RIGHT tizzy. Good on you and Joshua for doing this. I’m *very* impressed!
I did read the Pop story a couple of years ago. I’d love to hear an update as Pop gets older!
I can’t remember if I knew you were genderqueer or not… I think I have read some things about gender on your LJ, though. I think of you as a she (although I’m not sure why) – do you prefer a different pronoun for yourself? What do you think about various pronoun options in general?
I am genetically female, or so I presume. I have never had my genome tested. LOL I was sexed as female at birth based on my external genitalia. Having been raised ‘she’ I guess I’m used to it, or more or less indifferent to it. I cringe when people use the word ‘woman’ to describe me, though. I think I would find changing pronouns awkward at this stage of life, although I’m all for fucking with the gender binary whenever possible. I consider myself ‘one of the guys’ and often use the word ‘guy’ to describe myself (ie “I’m that guy”). I am the Friday person on the “GenderQueerChat” channel on YouTube, and a lot of the others on that channel are in various stages of transition, and fight with pronouns. For me, it’s the least of my gender battles.
I am really visibly female with enormous breasts, so even if I were to try and ‘look’ more gender neutral, there is that dead giveaway for people to leap to conclusions if they participate in the gender binary.
When people ask me to refer to them as a new gender, I always do. If I don’t know someone’s gender, I awkwardly tend to use their first name…. I did this recently on GQC, repeating “Dylan” when I was referring to Dylan’s video and what Dylan had asked us to do. Awkward, but better than guessing. I’m a HUGE proponent of using the term they wish to be called by, and for an infant, I presume I’d fall back to using the name, as I think I’d find ‘ou’ awkward. I know ‘ze’ is popular in the genderqueer community, and that rolls off the tongue a little less awkwardly than ‘ou’, probably because it mimics ‘he’.
Another question… or thought to ponder. How do you intend to introduce yourselves to the child? The words ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ are decidedly gendered, and do you want the kid knowing they have a male parent and a female parent? Or Issa and Joshua? I’m assuming you guys are happy with your assigned genders and have no reason to be gender neutral around the kid, however I think it’s neat that the kid might be exposed to that for others but not for [ou]self. My mother often jokes with me that she’s my ‘parental unit’. LOL
You know, I hadn’t thought of mom and dad from a gender perspective, but we’ve already talked about how we’re just going to use our names. I don’t like mom and dad from a hierarchical perspective. I don’t want my child to refer to me by a title. I wouldn’t try to avoid saying that we’re mom, dad, or parents, just like I wouldn’t avoid telling the kid that ou is my child… but I wouldn’t go around referring to ou as Child.
About 10 years ago, I was an assistant teacher in the 2yo room at a daycare center. There was a little boy in my class whose favorite color was pink. He asked his mom to buy him some pink jelly sandals and she did. I was shocked (but in a good way) being in a place like Peachtree City and seeing that. What did bother me is the fact that everyone just laughed and thought it was cute because it was obviously a “phase” and he was just two and would grow out of it.
My views may not be as strong as yours on this particular topic but there still are a bunch of things that just make me livid. Like who the hell decided that there were “boy” colors and “girl” colors?? Colors are just colors! How are barbie dolls and action figures any different from one another?
I remember seeing a news article from the early 1900′s saying pink was for boys. I found this googling:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=238733
I was able to raise my kids in a more gender open way when we lived on the West Coast, but now that we are in the South it’s harder. Gender feels much more concretized here. The most uncomfortable thing is when a stranger gets my kid’s gender wrong, (“Oh, he’s so cute!”) and I don’t correct them because I feel like it just doesn’t matter. But inevitably a few moments later in the conversation they will say something that exposes the truth (like asking her name) and then the person is mortified that they guessed wrong. I’ve just never been able to relate to the overwhelming emphasis on gender and it makes me feel like a total outsider sometimes. I appreciate reading your perspective and feeling understood, for once.
This is so funny! Both my boys had long hair, just as it grew naturally, until they got old enough to request specific hair cuts. People would call them “pretty girls” and I’d just say, “Thanks!” When they later realized they weren’t girls, they’d get all flustered and apologetic. WTF? Being a girl isn’t an insult.
Just came across this in my RSS… thought you’d get a kick out of it: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/03/10/baby-face-gendering-infants/
I love how many people thought the girl baby was photoshopped to be “prettier”, when it appears to be the exact same stock photo. It’s amazing how a little thing like the color pink or blue can wildly change perceptions.
Got me rethinking the process of naming my next one…
Thank you!
This post is very rewarding. I thought I was crazy for thinking these thoughts! I feel trapped by my own gender programming sometimes and have often wondered if I will unknowingly impose the same gender restrictions on my child as were imposed on me. I am due in about a month and wonder all the time… how can I make this life a good one? A happy one… this post will help <3
You’ll probably unknowingly and accidentally pass on all kinds of things based on your own programming… but that just has to be okay. Asking questions like how to make your child’s life a good one and pondering your programming and ways you want to change has to be enough. Congrats on your pregnancy!
I hope it’s not rude to comment on an article from over a year ago.
I wanted to say, Yes yes, and yes. I did the same thing in choosing a non-gender-specific set of names for my firstborn, though I don’t think my spouse realized they were all dual-purpose. :P I wasn’t entirely ungendered in my thinking, though; since neither my spouse nor I changed our surname at marriage, and I wasn’t going to pop a hyphenate into Baby’s life, I decided to give the Baby the surname of the parent with the same apparent gender. Since it turned out to be my (male) spouse’s name we gave to Baby, no one so far has questioned it. (To be honest though I don’t think most of his family realizes/recognizes I didn’t change my name. Oh well.) I doubt the same would’ve been true had Baby been a girl.
But, I wanted to thank your for sharing these thoughts, and helping me feel a little less alone in them.
Not rude at all – I love comments whenever they happen! Most people probably won’t notice that I chose a single name for my baby, since he turned out to be an apparent-boy, and Dylan is more often a boy choice. If he’d have been an apparent-girl, her name would have been Dylan, too. I was also opposed to hyphenating his last name. We went with my last name as Dylan’s middle name and his dad’s last name as his last name.
All my children went through an intense phase of female-gender-identification from ages 3-5 (they are all presumably female). With my first daughter, I carefully chose her clothes and toys to be gender-neutral and (though with my financial situation, I never turned down a free pink onesie among all the hand-me-downs :)). My twins have special needs, and their care was so challenging that taking pains with gendering was not something I could pay much attention to. All of them returned from their first or second day at preschool crazy for pink clothes, girly toys, etc. etc. etc. It upset me at first, but then I decided to just let it *be.* They had the toys and clothes I could afford to provide, and I simply made it my priority not to shame them for what they chose to wear or play with–even if I wished they’d make more neutral choices. It all worked out. Now they have fun making cockamamie outfits of all colors and styles.
I like the attitude you express here, and that’s my desire, too: to provide a certain environment at home, as I can, and then to be accepting of however Dylan expresses himself.