Re: [apmultiples] gender issues

["Nancy Whittier" <NWHITTIE email smith edu>]

I guess I think that neither fanciful, colorful clothes, and nurturing
roles, nor active physical stuff and practical clothes ought not be
limited to either sex. 

I don't have any articles of clothing that I wouldn't put on either
baby.  Both wear pink a lot - I like pink, and I think it's a great
color on both of the babies!  I put the ruffly shirts on both of them,
along with the overalls and such that are cut slightly differently for
boys and girls.  We don't have a ton of very girly clothes, though, and
we also don't have the sports/violence themed stuff.  (We do have a pair
of very cute red fleece overalls wtih tools on them...both babies wear
it.)  However, Eva does own a couple of dresses (about which I am very
ambivalent), and I wouldn't put them on Isaac to wear out of the house,
because of social stigma.  And there's no real reason to put them on
either baby if they aren't going out of the house....

With Jonah, our eldest, he asked to buy a dress or two when he was 2 or
3, so we did, but we talked frankly with him about how some people
thought boys shouldn't wear dresses.  He decided he didn't want to wear
them, say, to the grocery store.  He and his friends still like to dress
up in the fairy princess clothes, along with all the other stuff (wizard
robes, elf hats, etc.) - interestingly, some of his more
traditionally-boyish friends also enjoy this kind of play here, perhaps
because this seems like a safe place to explore it.  He and his friends
(boys and girls) also spend a fair amount of time running around the
yard hacking at the ice with big sticks.  

I am very curious to let Eva and Isaac discover what they are drawn to
and how they want to express themselves.  

Nancy


>>> elder nb sympatico ca 01/12/04 5:09 PM >>>
>
Anyway, I feel that if we place a huge importance on girls *not* being 
in frilly dresses or nurturing roles, we are just buying into what 
patriarchy tells us about what counts. We think that it is important 
*not* to be interested in clothes and that it is a problem for people to

look out for each other. I feel that our choices are really quite 
radically feminist -- we believe in people before things, and that's not

what is going on out there!

Jo-Anne


"There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day." -
Alexander Woollcott, American Author
 


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"There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day." - 
Alexander Woollcott, American Author
 

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