Raising Girls and My Insight into My Own Internalized Sexism

When I was picking out baby clothes before my first child was born, I only wanted neutral clothes, mostly because that way it would be very easy wash and match things (this was when I thought I would actually choose to put outfits together for my infant and not just grab whatever was in reach that didn’t smell! Oh I was so cute).  I tried to keep things as gender neutral as possible – from her nursery to her toys to her clothes.  Why?  well… I didn’t want my kid to be limited by her gender.  Because that happens. – yes, I know people want to think that we are beyond sexism but we are not.  We put children into categories and limit their options and I did not want that for my child.  I wanted her to get all the options and choose for herself.  It was around clothes that she first started making her own choices and what did she choose?  Bows, fairy wings, tutus and tiaras.  She would wear a doctor’s coat, apron and superhero cape as well but not with the joy that tutus brought her.  How did I feel about these choices these choices that I wanted to be up to her and not dictated by society?  To be honest, not great.
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Why did her choices bother me?  Why did I want her to veer more towards neutral or at least options not as entrenched in hyperfeminine?  As much as I wanted to give her options, I was still categorizing those options by gender.  Worse, I was adding different values to those categories.  My own concepts of what it means to be feminine were distracting me from what it means to be a feminist, one who values the right to be who you are without judgement.  I know that our culture values feminine and masculine traits differently.  Even in the quest for equality, our culture has pushed those male dominated fields more than the traditionally female fields.  It was about getting our girls into STEM not getting our boys into social work.  Equality was not about paying teachers as much as data analysts.  Equality was about allowing women into male dominated fields – because of course those were the fields that were the most valued, most lucrative and most prestigious.  We didn’t go farther into understanding why those fields held that value.  We ignored that the people with the most power would, of course, hold their positions in the highest esteem, creating a hierarchy of work in which they were at the top.  So we were allowing women access to the top but not necessary questioning why the top didn’t include the fields that women dominated.  All this understanding of culture and I had missed the opportunity to actually live my values through my parenting.  It was a very humbling reckoning and one that I am still working through. 

I love being a woman, and I love that I have two girls to raise.  I wish I could say that we live in a world where the phrase “raising strong girls” does not inherently mean we are valuing strength over compassion, power over collaboration or doctors’ jackets over tutus.  My hope is that these terms will hold less gendered meaning as my children grow and they and their amazing cohort of peers are ushered into a more equal world.  Really, what I want for my children is that they know their true value. The world will be what it is, but if they believe in themselves and know what they want, they will be able to navigate that world.  My job is to show them options and present those options with equal value and importance and then to listen to their choices.  And today, given my social epiphany, I find those choices have been amazing – they both look incredible in a tutu and there really is nothing more fun than a twirl.