Let's have a new holiday -- National Let Your Boy Be a Girl Day -- that lets boys be, well, girls for a day. That's right. I said it out loud. In a national forum. Online, where it will NEVER die.
Because every other day of the year they have to make sure they are NOT girls. Because if a boy acts like a girl the national press gets involved, the jihadists that weaponize their sons will crush us, and the rate of the sun's gradual extinction will speed up exponentially.
Of course, girls get to act like boys everyday, so they don't need a holiday. A girl's imagination and life would be a pretty barren place if she didn't learn from an early age how to empathize with being a boy. For instance, girls get to:
Boys, not so much. Let's reverse those examples by gender. Hmmmm. Not working for you, huh? I mean, really, boys wearing skirts everyday? Sissies. How about a gaggle of boys eagerly awaiting the next "girl movie," let's say a Wonder Woman summer blockbuster, wearing awesome gold wrist bands that repel bullets, kinda the way girls wear Harry Potter glasses? Puffsters.
I don't think so.
Now admittedly, little girls regularly run into problems when they violate hard and fast gender rules and the adults and kindergarteners that enforce them, like the girl who loved her Star Wars lunchbox but was, after five days, shamed into wanting to abandon it for something pink. But at least she got a day of unadulterated fun before school started. Very few boys would even consider, for example, seriously taking a My Little Pony lunchbox to school. By kindergarten they already have a sense of the real social penalties involved.
But, if we had an actual day devoted to boys acting like girls?
Well. That would solve a lot of problems for everyone. It would be a modern version of a medieval rich/poor role reversal Charivari, except for boys and girls and without the discordant pot clanking. So cool, huh?
On that day, boys could be liberated from the oppressive pressure to be so stridently masculine and do "girly" things without the treat of ridicule, shame or bullying, something that on the other 364 days of the year only the most supremely confident, devil-may-care, charismatic boys get to do.
Now, to be sure, many boys might not opt to go to town on BAG (the acronym for the short version of the holiday: Boys are Girls Day) by doing scarily subversive, culture-threatening, and potentially soul imperiling things, like painting their nails, or dressing in pink and sparkly dresses, like "Princess Boy." But there are some other things that some might boys might want to do, if given the freedom to be themselves.
On a day devoted to breaking the boy code a boy could, for example:
Hard to swallow, I know. These are small, everyday things with big, lifelong personal and societal consequences.
Now, it wouldn't be nice to deny girls the ability to participate entirely, so on the actual holiday girls who realize early that being perceived as "girly" is bad can do things like wear ribbons in their hair and Shiloh Jolie Pitt can shop for boy clothes and dress any way she likes, without it making the cover of every major sleazy gossip magazine in the world.
And, the best part?
Well, since it's just one day, gender fascists won't have to get their knickers tied up in knots worrying about the boys being... (shh)... gay. And the people who are psychically tortured by the horrors of a potentially feminized America can go see a 24-hour True Grit movie marathon and, when they're done, grab a quick bite and pretend the day never happened. Fun for all!!!
Here's the thing (I am officially removing my tongue from the side of my cheek), I know that we aren't going to make a national holiday (sigh). That would be naïve and utopian of me... like living in Sweden. But, really? Come on people. There's not a limited supply of maleness or femaleness on the planet. Nor is there some white-bearded zero-sum-gender divine dude in the sky tallying up tutus and frogs. Every instance of the feminine in a boy doesn't have to be a denigration of his masculinity. The opposite is already true for girls. In fact, it helps them to thrive and explore many dimensions of who they want to be. Case in point: The awesome Kicking Queen, Brianna Amat, who yesterday was crowned homecoming queen during halftime of a football game where she kicked the winning field goal.
This is not about whether a child is gay or straight, bi or not. It's about accepting a wider, more balanced definition of what it means to be human for everyone, a definition that includes and celebrates both male and female aspects equally.
Follow Soraya Chemaly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/schemaly
I have two sons and a daughter, all of whom have lots of friends. So my exposure to kids from elementary school through high school is ongoing. To address some of the points the author makes -- plenty of boys get excited about going to the movies and pink is about the only color that I don't see on most boys. There's plenty of red, orange, yellow there.
And little boys will often play teacher or play with a kitchen set, because school and home are primarily the only worlds they inhabit, so those things infuse their play. Ask any preschool teacher and they'll tell you that boys and girls alike enjoy playing dress-up and playing with the kitchen.
And I think boys opt for sports over sewing or hairstyling or other "girly" activities because they find sports more fun and a better outlet. I don't know the science behind this, but having been an education reporter and a parent, I've talked with countless teachers about the differences between boys and girls. And I've never heard anyone disagree that boys tend to have more energy -- they're less capable of sitting quietly at an activity than girls of the same age.
I really don't think most boys feel like they're missing out because they aren't encouraged to explore their female-ness.
The Holy Roman Empire wasn't amused, and put a stop to that.
So why's everyone upset about feminine boys and masculine girls? People are fine being themselves, so let's neither enforce nor disallow personalized self expression... which is probably kinda what Soraya was hinting at. Don't be afraid to try something new, regardless of societies frowny disapproval...
You could have 10 boys get to be girls holidays, and he would never want to participate. He wouldn't even wear a pink shirt for a particular activity at school. The best we could get was a blue shirt with a little patch of purple.
He was always like this. He was fascinated by trucks, cars and balls despite the fact that I am not into vehicles and not particularly athletic. When we bought him a doll, he cuddled it for a moment, and then grabbed the doll by the hair to spin her around and see how far he could throw her.
We are not alone.
The BAG holiday would be wonderful for the boys I know who are more "girly" on the continuum of gender, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that ALL boys have a little girl they'd like to let out once in a while.
Some do not. Ever.
Boys are HURT by this socialization. They have a tougher time dealing with their emotions, and so with life, which is emotional. There is another, and stealthier harm, as well. Because men do not recognize emotions, they are apt to rationalize emotional decisions and fool themselves into thinking that stupid behavior makes sense. This behavior then sets like cement, because the only way to backtrack is to admit it was emotional, and "real men" don't do that. The results include such things as not going to the doctor when they should and being unable to admit to, face and overcome prejudices. There are more, but you get the picture.
Political, economic, education, social, the mass media, there is no realm of modern day society that doesn't cater to any womans slightest whim or fancy. The right to life, freedom, property and vote are your only rights, the same as any man. Everything else is privilege and entitlement, and they are quite costly. You might think boys not playing dress up is a problem, but trust me, the extra trillion dollars a year taken from our taxes for womens entitlements is a far greater problem.
The only socialization problem in the modern world is women believing their way of dealing with things should also be mens way of dealing with things. When you try to bend the genders, and tell men to do things the way women do things, that's the problem. The way women do things isn't the default best way, even if you've been socialized to believe it is.
Furthermore, life is often ambiguous. Those who can't handle that have a much harder time, and they are the ones who tend to make rigid belief systems that do tremendous harm.
The fact is that it is a recent phenomenon that men are actually involved in the day to day raising of their children. And even today, it's a minority of men who function as a primary parent. So the boys are "taught" by women.
Why stop at making boys spend One Day as a Girl?
For instance, Sweden feminists managed to outlaw urinals in schools, to force boys to sit down and pee so they wouldn't feel superior to girls.
That could be your next goal: National Boys-Sit-and-Pee-Day.
Maybe you can institute a National Boys-Wear-Panties-and-Dresses-Day next?
And how about National Boys-Sell-Campfire-Cookies-Day?
The possibilities are almost endless....
Better yet, why go through the charade of even having boys at all? Why not abort male's in the womb and have only girls?
The things I am talking about seem trivial, but they're not. Everyday is National Girls Wear Pants Day. That's the point of the article. In your mind, there are boys and what they do is the norm and then they are girls and what they do is be girls and then do what boys do because that's the normal way to be.
Second, Stop play the "around the world' game, where you usurp legitimate women's issues in some other country to attempt and orchestrate change in a more open society. All that does is show you as a female supremisist. This tactic is often used with women in boardrooms, and shows a distinct lack of basic math skills, possibly explaining WHY there are less women in boardrooms. For a hypothetical example, if we have 5 countries, 3 of them have 35% women in boardrooms, one has 0% and one has 90%. By the math, only 39% of boardrooms are women. That means women across the board need to improve by 10%... That one country that already has 90% women is still not deemed good enough by people like you, hell, even 100% won't be good enough if that one country at 0% stays 0%.
So knock it off claiming foreign issues in order to further your domestic goals. It's dishonest.
In no way do I read anger against boys... or a desire to have boys stop doing masculine things... where does she mention anything like that? My son likes to wear a pink fairy tutu while he uses his toy power tools to pretend to build a spaceship. I wish that our culture wouldn't look at that as strange, since they certainly would not see a girl wearing a tutu wielding a power drill as anything but fantastic.
I hope something helps you gain a broader acceptance of truthful human expression.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply (and some good points)
I'm all for letting a boy wear pink if that's what he chooses, but I fail to see the need for a "National Day" for that - I suspect many parents would do a little "forceful suggesting".
Why would I say that, you wonder? Well, I've taken my daughter to dance classes two or three times a week for eleven years now, and am around women all the time as the classes progress.
Over the years I've seen several moms FORCE their boys into dance classes. The boys do not want to be there, tend to act up and misbehave. There was one instance where several of us took our daughters out of a class because one mom just insisted on keeping her boy in it - even when he was clearly miserable and acting out. (he would have done well in soccer, where he could run and run).
If there was truly a National Let Your Boy be a Girl Day, I'd bet there would be many mom's who would force it with their own sexist (or anti-male) agendas.
Really, we need a national day for that?
It's a very interesting point and something I've noticed since I was a child myself. Why is it ok for girls to do boy things, but if boys do girl things they're identified as freaks? What is so bad about female things that boys must shun them like the plague, while there is no similar prohibition on girls doing boy things? It's an extremely interesting question and says a great deal about our gender attitudes. Even the hostile reaction so many men are having tells us a great deal.
We tend to ignore double standards that are biased towards males even though they're the exact same ones that women experience for the most part . We talk endlessly about females being an underclass in our society despite all objective indications pointing in the other direction . This is somewhat baffling considering every objective measurement indicates that it's boys who are suffering at the present time . They're not suffering because they can't wear dresses , they're suffering because society has become so feminized that it has literally stacked the deck against them . Some peoples' solution ? Well , try and get them to be more like girls .
You don't see this , I realize that . Well , I would say that that was fine if not for how much damage it's doing to our society . Foremost , women who support the modern incarnation of feminism (which bears no resemblance to the original form or intent of it) have made no effort whatsoever to even acknowledge that it was ideas exactly like the "tongue in cheek" proposal presented above that have left boys and men at such a disadvantage .
This might make sense except NOBODY is telling boys to be more like girls, so how could they be tired of it? The entire point of the article is that we teach boys to shun girls and girlish things as if they were contaminants, while at the same time encouraging girls to enjoy boyish things to whatever extent they please.What's more, almost all the entertainment that kids enjoy - starting with cartoons and going on to video games, movies, sitcoms, toys, etc. - are male oriented and girls are never made to feel uncomfortable about that.
Being male is still the default definition of humanity. That's the point. I realize MRAs like to hijack every single discussion to get on the bandwagon that somehow society has been "feminized" - though they never ever provide any data to back up this point. However THIS article is about something that predates feminism - the fact that femininity is seen as something males must shun, while masculinity holds no such stigma for females. It's an interesting topic, so why don't we talk about that, instead of the same old feminist bashing that MRAs can't seem to stop obsessing over.
Not surprisingly, this fear, instilled early on in our boys, produces so many insecure, emotionally broken people, who go through life inflicting pain on themselves and others.
The double standard exist because there is a male and female of the species whose nature compels them to desire different traits in a mate. In the same way men like lean muscle and wide hips while women prefer a large muscles and a broad shoulders. This too is a double standard because the two groups of different form are attracted to one another by these differences.
Men have a capacity for love and tenderness, but this has been thwarted at every turn by the feminist establishment.
Not surprisingly, this has resulted in unprecedented numbers of adult unmarried/unpartnered and childless women in Western countries, insecure and emotionally broken women, who turn their bitterness towards men and boys and play the victim card while simultaneously inflicting pain on themselves and others.
For some reason she assumes men were dying to be female. In fact their may be some truth to that because males are so tired of being a feminist punching bag that being apart of the gender entitled to special treatment from men would be a nice vacation from since they are living in a gynocentric culture. Boys on the other hand would prefer boys being boys day a lot more. They would like their masculinity celebrated and supported rather than scorned and treated like some social disease.
As boys fall farther behind in school all this women can think is to put them in dresses as if being male was their problem. If we treated women as such, to declare feminine qualities inherently inferior and a impediment to progress women would rightly be outraged. We don't boost the self esteem of our young men by forcing them to act like girls nor do we stem the tide of apathy and dissatisfaction that is sucking the ambition out of them before they ever enter adulthood.
We constantly promote female achievement and applaud female success while scorning every man in power because it would be better if he were a women. The often repeated notion of women being better leaders is another example of the sexism against men that is openly practiced in our society. I surmise that a culture where criticism of females is severely curtailed while the degradation of males is celebrated is in fact a gynocentric culture.
The common refrain from the feminist ideologues is in regard to men having the most ego gratifying positions of power in the society. This rationalization falls apart once you look at actual reality. The men in power are feminist main benefactors. They have not only forced open doors for women but actively promote their interest over that of men. Men are the ones who are not even permitted to consider their genders interest or face severe social consequences while females can engage in open warfare against the opposite sex.
Males have no men's section here or HP. We don't discuss the 300,000 rapes a year of men in prison and the enormous gap between boys and girls in academic performance is mostly ignored. At what point do men get to be fully human and worthy of care along side women.
And if it's not a zero sum game, why always point to the glass ceiling? I have news for you. 99.999% of men reside below the glass floor. That's where we die 7 years earlier, 98% of workplace and military deaths, 80% of suicides, 80% of the homeless, 50% extra punishment for the same crime, ect. Do come and join the vast majority of men down there, won't you?
And yes , I 'get' what you're trying to say . You think that it's beneficial to tell boys that they can dress like girls if they want to . people should be free to be themselves . I have no objection to that idea but what you're missing is the fact that children have an innate desire to fit in with their peers . In this case , by design , their peers are members of their own sex . Boys and girls both are ruthless with the hurt they can lob at ostracized members of their respective peer groups . If one boy shows up wearing a dress , what do you think the boys AND the girls are going to say ? Think they're just going to give him an understanding smile ? No , they're going to taunt him mercilessly for years .
In other words , the result of such a completely ill-considered idea would do infinitely more harm than good . I doubt it would ever be a good idea for any kid of any age to try this if they wish to avoid harsh comments at the very least and violence at worst .
Men having power is not of any real consequence because the average man is no more powerful than the average women, but the systematic attack on men required to make this happen will does real harm. Taking down boys is very much apart of the goal along with men in general. It is zero sum game, in which girls gain through boys losses. It can be a technology job or the leading roles in movies. If males have more of it, then it need to go to females.
Assuming she succeeded in setting all these balances our wounded sons will not be happy people living in a society that passively accepted their failure while promoting women for decades. The rise of the male underclass would be so entrenched they would have no choice but to rebel as women did when the roles were reversed. I believe in equality but I don't think it has to be encouraged this way.
Let them be who they are and end these power games.
Do you mean "harsh comments at the very least and violence at worst"? If so, then why is there such a violent reaction to boys who would not think it "such a completely ill-considered idea"?
Tell us, what is the source of this violent reaction, in your opinion (other than peer pressure, which you've already mentioned)?
To this day in spite of women's progress their is considerable resistance to the notion of women dating down. The author of "The End of Men" concluded women would simply stop having children with these men. They would not date down or embrace the social role men once had when the roles were reversed. Men would take on a women of little or no means and care for her. WOMEN DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS FOR MEN.
So you have these frustrated poorer men in a society that sees them as inferior. History says these men will rise up against whatever they see as the oppressor. These are the men who fight our wars and police our streets who will at once see a reason to be against the society they live in as it seems designed solely for the benefit of women at the expense of men. I would not want to be there for that and I doubt we are stupid enough to let it happen.
We definitely do not need to increase the proportion of males who are in touch with their feminine side.
Fathers are discriminated against? Really? Because what I see here in the real world are fathers who could care less what happens to their children as soon as they stop getting to be with the woman who gave birth to their children. They make babies with any woman stupid enough to have them and move on to the next usually before the child even makes it into this world.
Boys do need male role models, we can agree there but they also need to be left alone to be who they are going to be. You don't have to force them to play with trucks and play in the dirt to make them strong men...they do have to have a man in their life to look up to though.
I do acknowledge you probably have the better intentions in the world (like to stop the bullying of gay-kids, or to make the equality progress between genders), but seriously. I remember when I was little, we kids mostly didn't care about "cross-dressing" everyday. Except a few girls who wanted to dress and have their hair decorated like princesses (and who were mocked because of that), most kids wore normal, colored clothes. Even the games repartition between genders wasn't as sterotyped as you make it sounds like.
FYI, a lot of little boys wear Harry Potter accessories and stuff, and (gasp) NOBODY CARES. Really.
As for your "let the boy be a girl", what about the (absolute majority of) the boys who have no interest in being a girl? What if a little boy (or a little girl, for what matters) doesn't want to have tea, play dolls, cry or pretend to be a nurse? Do you intent to force them to?
Oh and I would not allow my kids - boys OR girls - to dye their hair or to go to the SPA before they're at least 14. Before, I think it's contributed to the over-sexualization of children.
Apart of being a boy is not wanting to do girl stuff. That is apart of our masculine identity, perhaps girls have something similar. Either way we do it without coaching or any adults to follow since adults don't play as children do. Boys go the way of male bonding and girls go towards female bonding. This division and independent development is natural and it helps them to form identities in their respective genders.
Then your argument makes no sense. If it's frowned upon for men to wear "feminine colors", then why are they many men in your office doing it? Just to push the boundaries?