Avoiding gender and sexuality 'norms'

[sunshine_sieben]

So true, it's hard to avoid pink for girls. But I guess it's always an option to go into the boys aisle and buy some boys' clothes for a girl. A bit weird doing it the other way around, though... But each to their own

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Actually, I really hate the fact that boys are "cheeky" or "naughty" on all their clothes! I refuse to buy those or put DS in them when they are bought for him. I don't mind cars so much. Most of DS's clothes are plain or stripy, there are some with logos but usually just something like a teddy in a hot air balloon or words like "Little Man" or (my favourite) "My Mummy Is Yummy".

There are some really pretty green dresses for girls this spring, btw, OK so a bit floral but springlike in green and white. Just as I won't buy "naughty" for DS (he isn't, he's a very good young man) I won't buy "princess" or likewise for a girl. Fair enough, Mama may be a Lady but she isn't a princess! "Just" a very beautiful, special and loved young girl.

[paradise lost]

DD is alternating just now between her 2 fave t-shirts. One is deep blue, and has a monkey hanging from a "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign on it (from a charity shop). The other is black and says "Detroit Rock City" on it in silver (from her American Godmother). She has lots of pink hand-me-downs from other little girls, and a bunch of blue hand-me-downs from little boys. I tend to put whatever she wants on her, though i often don't put skirts or dresses on because i don't like that in the meitai or the buggy there's always something between her legs (my back/the crotch strap part of the harness) which pushes the skirt up and leaves her legs bare/in just tights.

I generally just let her do whatever she wants. She's obviously like mummy (bit male-brained/engineery) as she loves cars and trains and so on, but she also has a babydoll she'll BF and will put all of her toys "to bed" each on their own (unused, nicked from my packet grrr) baby wipe

I suppose DD will grow up modelling my behaviour because that's what she sees most, but there's bits of her which are very unlike me already - she can sing, i'm tone deaf - and i just let her be.

I find girls clothes desperately boring, because 90% of what you see on the rails is utterly impractical for a child that wants to be SURE how mud feels when you lie in it....

Bx

[Smoke Jaguar]

I, too, am of the 'not imposing gender stereotypes' onto DS. I did always say that he will be as gender neutral as possible until he makes his own preferences - which, I'm well aware, will be partly influenced by social norm (which influences what he sees being done around him). Same attitude towards icons, too - I didn't want to buy cartoon character logo stuff till he showed an inclination towards such. So, we have a LOT of Bob the Builder now! He took an interest in real life diggers and construction from our drive through Ireland in Jan (with just about every arterial being ripped up and improved!) and it grew from there. We actually probably 'fed' him trains before that and it just hasn't had the same impact (to explain, I live near Puffing Billy and a train line so we don't have to go out of our way to talk about trains!), so Thomas is not nearly as loved, but the only other thing he'll watch with interest.
As for clothes, he still doesn't care less about it - he'll just as quickly put on his cousins pink spotted tunic top as his cargo pants (mummy has a pair just like them ) and has done just that recently!
He's going to cop enough 'training' for the masculine role when I have less control over what he is exposed to, so while he's mainly with me or at childcare (they're great about that sort of thing, advantage of being a university attached centre!) he'll not be told what's a boy or girl thing.
I cringe and have to stop myself from saying something when I hear someone tell a child "Boys don't do that" or "That's for girls" etc - unless Oscar's there. If that kind of thing gets said in front of Oscar, I make a light comment because I don't want him to ever believe I condone that thinking.
He can do whatever he chooses, as long as he's chosen it (and even if that choice is influenced by social norm) and it hasn't been dictated and imposed by shame and ignorance.

[Bathsheba]

Are we concerned about the lack of positive male role models for our sons? Compared to when I was a kid there just aren't as many men in the daily lives of kids these days. When i was at Primary level at school 3/6 teachers of mine were male. There are no where near the same ratio of male Primary school teachers these days. My DD was lucky to have had 2 male teachers during her primary school years but they were only for Japanese and Sport, not her class teachers. I think for our children to have a healthy balance of influences we need to have balance in gender exposure and I just don't see this happening It's way too heavily scewed to female influence. What also makes things worse is that many families are losing touch with extended families of grandfathers/uncles/male cousins etc. What do people think?

[Phteven]

So true, it's hard to avoid pink for girls. But I guess it's always an option to go into the boys aisle and buy some boys' clothes for a girl. A bit weird doing it the other way around, though... But each to their own

My boys have plenty of girls clothes. Some are hand me downs from girl cousins and others are stuff that I've bought them.
I needed non-cotton tights for Yasin to wear under his ski gear on days that weren't cold enough for his merino thermals. I headed straight to the girls section and found a great black pair - he's wearing them today. Imran needed thermals and none of the boys ones measured up so I found a nice pink set for him. I'd prefer him to be warm than butch.

The one that annoys me is the fact that its just assumed that all boys like cars/trucks/planes and camo (meh, I hate camo). Can we get some variety in boys clothing please? On the up side, boys do seem to get a variety of colours unlike the wall-to-wall pink for girls.

I've never had a problem finding non-car/truck/plane stuff. Yasin loves pirate gear so we have lots of jolly-roger clothes here.
At the moment I'm crazy for the boo foo woo and little horn stuff.


The weird thing is that it's so culturally determined. 100 years ago pink was for boys and blue was for girls. When I was a child most of the children's clothing was very unisex.

Bath, I consider myself lucky when it comes to male role models. My boys have access to a pretty diverse group of adult men. At the moment Yasin has a male swimming teacher and a male kick-start teacher. He had a male ski instructor too. It's a shame that men are deserting the teaching profession but when I was at uni there were some pretty switched on guys doing education so I have hope for the future.

[Phteven]

In answer to the first post - I tend to not really care much either way. I'm not in a hurry to place gender stereotypes on my boys but I don't care much when other people do.
I guess for me it comes down to the fact that I think we should celebrate our children's masculinity. For me the issue is with the way that masculinity is constructed.
Steve Biddulph draws an interesting contrast in one of his books between the differant masculinities at work when some young hoons crash their car. On one hand you have the kind of masculinity that is encapsulated in young men binge drinking and endangering themselves and others (foolish, boorish, violent) on the other hand you have the kind of masculinity that is represented by the rescue services (strentgh, courage, compassion, selflessness, intelligence).
It's the second type of masculinity I want to celebrate in my sons. If we can make our sons see how much we value and respect these masculine traits and introduce them to men who have these traits we can help them to steer a path that avoids the kind of hyper-masculinity that leads men into harm and trouble (for themselves and others).
I guess that my sons are lucky in that they have access to diverse models of masculinity - my husband comes from a culture where men are comfortable with hugging and kissing each other, that it's not 'sissy' to pick a flower for yourself and it's ok to cry.
Boys are differant - they get massive doses of testosterone at differant stages of their lives that alters their brain chemistry. Their left and right brains are connected differantly to girls so they process information diferantly. IMO not accepting these differances is doing our sons (and daughters) a disservice.
To me the gender stereotypes are neither here nor there - the really important matter is helping our sons construct some kind of masculine identity that makes them into fine men not boorish thugs.