Observe the following photo (which I recently found in a giant box of old family pictures that I am in the process of attempting to organize):
It also occurs to me that, in looking at the toys I apparently had back circa 1981, they were toys that did stuff. Or that one could do stuff with. I liked parts, and moving parts, and things with levers and switches and strings to pull. And I don't know if this was a mark of the era or what, but it kind of actually amazes me that there's no pink to be seen here.
Not that there's anything inherently wrong with pink. In some contexts it's a perfectly serviceable color, and I don't think liking pink says anything bad about a person. But ye gads. I did a Google Image Search for "little girl's room" and got the following:
Of course if someone actually wants a Princess Room far be it from me to suggest their preference is somehow in error. But seriously, it irritates me a lot that so much "geared toward girls" (toys, decor, clothing, etc.) is all so similar and so focused on Prettification.
I got to escape SOME of this growing up. I had a few subversively excellent relatives, like my Grandma June, who loved science and animals and the outdoors and shared these things with me. She also got me camouflage gear:
But of course it wasn't all idyllic all the time. I was extremely lucky compared to girls growing up in previous generations, or in households less geekishly oriented, but the relatively small amount of "you must conform to this stereotype OR ELSE YOU ARE BAD!" I experienced nonetheless had a negative impact on me.
E.g., sometimes I ran into being called "spoiled" or accused of "trying to be special" or "causing a ruckus" for merely preferring the non-girly option in a given situation. I once got sent out into the hall for indicating a preference for the star stickers being given out by my Spanish teacher to the boys over the heart stickers the girls were getting. But I was not trying to be special; I simply didn't realize that I was obligated to only choose the Girly Option in such cases.
I didn't realize until much later that some choices weren't real choices but tests. And I kept failing those tests. And I dearly want to live in a world where young girls never, ever get in trouble for failing to silently acquiesce to the demands of stereotype.
***
Fast forward some years. I've managed to get through college (many, many thanks to my parents for helping me figure out registration, class schedules, etc.). I go to work as an electrical engineer. It's difficult but rewarding. For the most part I don't have a sense of being overtly subject to sexism or discrimination on the gender front. But is it really such a meritocracy?
***
I'm riding in a car with a co-worker. We're going to an offsite meeting. Co-worker admits he doesn't exactly know how to get to the destination. I pull out a map, read it, and inform him which way to go.
"Wow! I'm impressed! I didn't think women were supposed to have the spatial ability to use maps!"
At the time, I am flattered. Later, I am annoyed. The same goes for many other similar situations, wherein I'm told things like "You think like a man! And that's good!"
***
And I still don't know what to do about all this. Aside from, you know, continuing to follow my technical inclinations and avoid getting into too many flamewars about Why There Aren't More Female Engineers. Because honestly I'd rather be DOING engineering than arguing about it.
But at the same time, I know that I can't just completely dismiss "gender stuff". I can't go around acting like just because I "broke into the field" that everything is fine and dandy and that only a troublemaker would bring up the mere possibility of sexism still being real.
Believe me, I'd LIKE to ignore gender issues. Flamewars and endless bicker-fests including copious Caveman Hunter-Gatherer Ev-Psych Stories bore me practically to tears. I just don't think we're there yet as a culture or a species. And we aren't going to get there, in my estimation, until those of us who do end up in engineering and other math and hard-science-heavy fields are acknowledged as actually existing as women, not just as shocking "exceptions" to the Princess Majority.
8 comments:
You will, perhaps, be happy to know that our pending female offspring will be residing in the same cyan colored bedroom as her elder brother did when she enters the world. There's pink in the curtains, but if it's good enough for him it's good enough for her. ;)
My parents were partial to brown and yellow in my childhood wardrobe. And I have to admit..I've been drawn to the same when looking at girl stuff.
Audrey: Oh yes that is indeed nifty. :D And I don't think pink is OMG TEH EVIL or anything, it just irks the heck out of me when people (not you, obviously!) act like it's the only option for girls. Or when some toy company decides to make an Official Girl Version of something awesome and gender-neutral (like when those pink, domestic-themed Lego sets came out, gack!).
On that note, though, I've actually read some blogs lately by parents of young boys who want to dress up in pink and sparkles and I think THAT absolutely ought to be okay as well. Sexism doesn't just hinder girls, it reduces options for boys too.
Nice stoner boots you're wearing with the camos!
CPP: Oh good grief, those are not stoner boots, they're just hiking boots (sorry but stoners really really annoy me). And I loved those as well, even though people at school called me a lumberjack when I wore them...
My parents tried to actively raise usall as gender-neutrally as possible without also forcing us into anything (though on some points they insisted: I could not have shiny lacquered mary-jane shoes, for which in hindshight I'm very glad). So you encounter society at some point anyway and I eventually went through a period of wanting only dresses and pink, or trying to conform to the norm anyway (since actually, my favourite colour was yellow. The mind boggles. These days I abhor yellow), and they didn't refuse that either. Went away quickly enough. I never had a pink frilly room, though my little niece now does (apparently she did ask for it specifically though, although that doesn't mean she really wants it, it may just mean she thinks she has to want it, like I did). The fact that she also likes dragons and snakes cheers me up.
Anyway, my brother liked wearing my dresses, and trying make-up, and wearing the neighbour's heeled shoes. Also ninja turtles, knights, pirates, and gory drawings of said things. (And so did I :D).
Me and my mom are both incredibly bad at anything remotely related to mathematics, I can't tell left from right, and my mom has no sense of spatial awareness. I hate that these are sometimes held up as evidence of the difference between men and women (especially when my mom was young, but I know it is still around, *maybe* less loud and blatant), since actually, these things are related to stuff like dyscalculia and dyspraxia.
Norah: Oh yeah. The math thing is a whole other mess entirely. I spent many years as a kid terrified that I was "bad at math because I was a girl" and that I'd never be able to be a scientist. But then I took geometry in high school and everything sort of "clicked" -- turns out I'm actually quite good at math. I just suck at arithmetic.
What's more, apparently the sorts of math I'm best at (geometry, trig, multi-variable calculus, stuff involving surfaces) are widely considered to be Boy Math(TM), at least by folks heavily invested in Stereotypical Brain Differences.
Of course some might suggest that I'm not a "fair example" being on the autistic spectrum and all, but I'm really skeptical of that Extreme Male Brain business.
Norah wrote: Anyway, my brother liked wearing my dresses, and trying make-up, and wearing the neighbour's heeled shoes. Also ninja turtles, knights, pirates, and gory drawings of said things. (And so did I :D).
Oh yeah. That sounds kind of like me and my brother...we had random buckets of toys that included Barbies and Gi Joes all mushed together and everyone played with everything.
"Wow! I'm impressed! I didn't think women were supposed to have the spatial ability to use maps!"
Oy. :(
I wish people understood that the variance in spatial and language abilities among males and females in the general population is much greater than the difference between the male vs. female population means.
As for gender roles.. when I was a kid, someone in my family (don't remember who) gave me a child-scale fake kitchenette. I used it as an enormous landscape for my inch-tall cat figurines to explore.
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