Ryn, I agree - different is not bad
Bath - I, too, like how you've nutted out 'submission'. In my mind, most ways I think about submission is along the lines of, but not synonymous with 'subservient'. The latter is far more odious to me, and submission still has negative connotations for the most part until you talk about submission with trust. That's also encapsulated by the times I have to yell out 'no' or 'stop' when DS is about to do something more risky than usual! I was also quite a defiant child and I wouldn't change that. My mum wouldn't either, even though it was her absolute bane many a time. I WILL raise my kids to 'question, question, question'. Except if they become firefighters, then they can question everything except most orders on the fireground
Anyway, I also agree with the trend to assign labels based on superficial beauty on girl children. Pretty, beautiful, ugly etc. DS will know that he is more than a beautiful boy and that he must act with integrity before he relies on his looks for influence when he's older. Any girls I have will not hear from me things like "She's ugly", "she's pretty" etc. My mum was very free with her opinions on womens' looks, to the point where one day I said I thought a newsreader was pretty and she shot me down to say she was, in fact, ugly. For a long time after that, I assumed there was some criteria I was not privy to that meant some people were pretty and some were ugly and my mum knew which was which. But she started to cross the line and say women were ugly when I thought different. So, I've resolved not to entertain that sort of talk anymore.
Another way I counter gender stereotyping is that I don't define people as male or female. If he points out a man, that's ok, but I'm not going to talk about kids we know and say 'x is a girl' etc. They are people with lots to offer in their differences.
I can only do so much, as I do live in society. I thought about this long and hard during pregnancy, especially because we didn't find out what sex he would be and it created comment in our circles.
I'm really enjoying this thread, too, thanks chickies!!