Gender Neutral Children

Based on my own observation through keeping up with news and the information presented in this article, it seems as though the phenomenon of parents raising their children as 'gender neutral' has become increasingly common in recent years. Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper, parents of five-year-old Sasha, did not publicly reveal the gender of their son until they felt that they had no choice (once Sasha entered kindergarten). The basis of this decision lies in their disdain for gender stereotyping that seems to pervade every corner of modern society. Sasha's mother, in an article by Daily Mail, said, "Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become. I start to get cross with it if it skews their potential." For this reason, Beck and Kieran referred to Sasha as "the infant" rather than addressing him as their son or daughter and only told a select few what Sasha's gender actually is. In addition, his parents allowed him to play with both dolls and Legos and wear both boys' and girls' clothing.

One of the main differences that distinguishes Sasha's parents from Storm's parents is that Sasha's parents are "keen to highlight the issue publicly and get other parents talking about it" whereas Storm's parents did not seem to have this intention. Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker made the decision to raise their baby Storm as gender neutral, but Kathy was not too thrilled about all the criticism directed towards her and her husband after their announcement became public. Kathy wrote in a letter, "The strong, lightning-fast, vitriolic response was a shock. The idea that the whole world must know our baby's sex strikes me as unhealthy and voyeuristic." The reasons that Kathy and David cite for raising Storm as gender neutral are similar to the reasons that Sasha's parents named, however. Kathy calls it "a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a standup to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime."

I personally think this is such a positive, refreshing way to look at it. I agree that we are very bound by the stereotypes associated with our respective genders, and the idea that perhaps we can free ourselves from these stereotypes before they have an opportunity to take hold of us is intriguing. I do think there are definitely limitations to attempting to raise a gender neutral child, however. An American child psychiatrist named Dr. Harold Koplewicz, quoted in the Daily Mail article, does not agree with this practice, claiming that "when children are born, they're not a blank slate. We do have male brains and female brains." This is where I have a bit of a hard time wrapping my mind around this child-rearing strategy and thus know that I would not be capable myself of raising my child in such a way.

To me it is a shame that, despite the general spread of tolerance and acceptance in society these last few decades, people feel the need to attack these parents for their decision to raise their children in unconventional ways. If people made derisive, harshly judgmental comments directed toward parents disregarding their child's gender in the first few years simply because they were concerned about the development of the child, such comments would be slightly more tolerable. However, the majority of these critics are simply unwilling to open their eyes to the possibility that perhaps norm-breaking practices may be exactly what our society needs to correct the ills and injustices prevalent in cultures around the world. 

Social Networks

It has always been very clear to me which of my Facebook friends are very concerned about the image of themselves that they convey and which of my Facebook friends could care less how they are perceived by their Facebook pages. There is a group of people who take special care to ensure that their pages are neat, portray plentiful and accurate information, and contain only photographs in which they look polished and at their best. This group of people places great value on how they portray themselves on Facebook and thus how others perceive them, so they do what they can with the tools available to them on Facebook to preserve their image. Those who do not seem to care so much about the content and format of their pages do not seem to me to be trying to summarize themselves in a mere page on the Internet. The reasons for this can vary greatly. One may have no desire to recreate themselves via a personal webpage; another individual may not see a webpage as capable of summarizing himself or herself.

It is one thing to state that Facebook pages may in a sense fully portray a person's character and place in society. However, I do not think that a Facebook page can be considered capable of being a "virtual personality". For example, my Facebook page shows the town I live in, the schools I have attended, what pages I have "liked", and my favorite books, movies, and musicians. In addition, you can see who I am friends with, the photographs I have been tagged in or have posted myself, and what people post on my own wall. Visitors to my page get a glimpse at what I do, what I like, and who I associate myself with. They will not, however, be able to tell much about my personality because I do not post my thoughts or anything of the sort as status updates.

There are definitely gendered differences to Facebook. Teenage girls and young women tend to have many more photos of themselves on their pages, whether posted by themselves or their friends. Females also seem to be more self-conscious as to how these photos portray themselves and obsess over posted photos more frequently. Utilizing social media to gain status as part of the "cool" or "in" crowd is a normal part of teen life. In "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites", Boyd writes that this process is "part of how they [teens] work through the cultural practices and legal rules that govern society". While girls compare themselves and their body and fashion images to other girls and their respective body and fashion images, boys look to portray toughness and masculinity and try to compete with such portrayals of other boys. Most of the pages of my male friends on Facebook from high school are dominated by photos and posts related to sports or outdoor activities. It appears to me that these young men are hoping to create a representation of themselves that highlights their "manliest" aspects.

Reality Television

A reality show that my family enjoys watching here and there is called "Shark Tank". The show first ran in 2009 on ABC and is still in production today. Aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges who will then choose whether they want to invest. One of the judges is Barbara Corcoran, co-founder of a real estate business called The Corcoran Group. As the only female "shark", Barbara's gender is highlighted by the contrast of her behavior and the male judges' behavior as well as the comments directed towards her by the male judges. While the male sharks are brutally honest when critiquing the weaknesses or flaws in business plans and usually do not display patience or understanding, Barbara tends to try to be softer in her criticisms and in telling entrepreneurs that she will not be investing. The male judges tend to make jokes involving gendered stereotypes although Barbara herself has short hair and is not overtly feminine in appearance.



Just this fall, another female judge joined Barbara on the panel, and Barbara seemed to be very pleased about that. The following quote is from an interview with USA Today:

"I've been asking them to put two women on the set since the beginning," says Corcoran, who believes "the key that turned the lock was the tremendous amount of pressure they felt from viewers at home," which she stoked in countless speeches to groups of women who'd asked the same question.

It is clear from this quote that previously there had been a feeling of male hegemony on the show both on the panel as well as amongst the entrepreneurs. The following quote is from the same article in USA Today (Lori Greiner, "QVC queen", is the judge who joined Barbara this fall):

And both believe female sharks have "a better perspective on practical real-life things," Greiner says, "because they're the ones that do a lot of the purchasing for the home. They think three steps ahead."

From the episodes I have watched I can tell that Barbara is a very strong woman who will put up a fight if she has to, but I would agree that it probably has been even more difficult to trump the "woman" perspective now that two confident women are on the panel simultaneously. 

On an interesting side note, Barbara wrote a book entitled If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails: And Other Lessons I Learned from My Mom. Without knowing anything about the book, it is clear that Barbara has had experiences related to feminine stereotypes and body image. As a successful executive in a male-dominated field, Barbara has found that her gender plays a large role in how others treat her. In "Is TV for Real?" Janice Peck's analysis on Oprah's enterprise is discussed in addition to "the global impact that [her] key message of self-empowerment (especially for women) has had". In my opinion, Barbara Corcoran conveys a similar message of self-empowerment to women of humble beginnings like herself to not be intimidated to work their way up to the top of male-dominated professions.

Boys, Girls and Toys - Oh My

Upon entering any given toy store, it is extremely clear where you should head depending on the gender of the child you are looking to buy something for. The aisles filled with 'girl' toys seem to radiate the color pink. Walk down an aisle geared towards boys and you will find yourself immersed in a sea of dark colors. The little girl in the Youtube video explaining to her father her take on pink toys and princesses understands this clear distinction but is obviously unsure as to why this is the way things are. The packaging of a typical Barbie, Bratz, or Polly Pocket doll tends to be pink or purple, sparkly, and adorned with text in "cute" fonts. Dolls are abundant among aisles geared towards girls, but these aisles also contain items for playing dress-up as well as products for "playing house", such as the Easy Bake oven. From early childhood girls are exposed to the stereotypes placed upon them by society; girls should be ultra feminine, strive for beauty and fashion, and learn how to be domestic. The emphasis on body image and appearance is especially great in these toy stores, which is an unsettling concept considering how young the consumers of these products are.

In this photograph the changes made to Barbie's body are absolutely obvious. Her torso has been made much thinner, her breasts perkier, and her butt curvier. What disturbs me the most is that her underwear was made to be much skimpier. 

Bratz dolls are known for their extremely heavy makeup, flashy jewelry, fashionable (and sometimes revealing) clothing, and overdone hair. Why do we shelter young girls from inappropriate, oversexualized television but allow them to play with dolls that have unrealistic, unattainable bodies with scandalous clothing and highly made-up faces? Girls' toy aisles have a hidden agenda, which is to expose girls to what society expects of them as young women before they have even hit puberty.

The same thing is present in the boys' aisles as well. Boys' aisles primarily contain action figures of superheroes, athletes, and soldiers, all with exaggerated muscular builds and tough-looking facial expressions, in addition to toy trains and trucks, Matchbox cars, and sports equipment. Again we see that young boys are having thrown at them the mold they are expected to fill as they grow older in American society. Boys are exposed to products emanating hypermasculinity with the intentions of developing this hypermasculinity within the character of these boys as they grow. 

The little girl in the Youtube video made a point to say that there are boys who would like to buy princess dolls and girls who would enjoy playing with superhero action figures, but she was not sure why they were not allowed to do so. Technically nothing is stopping these children, but the toy stores and American media in general surely don't make it easy for them to even think of asking the question.