On Facebook yesterday, an old friend remarked on a statement I said that peeked her interest. We were discussing the upcoming hallowe’en night and the ridiculous state western culture is in when we think about women and young females choice in costume selection. A Collegehumor.com video was posted in light of it, where all the women’s costumes ranged from ‘sexy pirate’ to ‘sexy Jesus’ and I responded the difficultly that exists in trying to by an un-sexualized costume not for adults but for a girl. I remarked that today it seems easier to raise a feminist son than a feminist daughter. She’d like to know why.
So this is my anecdote. I have no daughters. I have two young nieces between two and four, and my boyfriend has a five-year-old daughter. I am raising a son, who’s presently four years old.
My son is aware of his sex, quite aware, and sometimes to my embarrassment is also apt to inform other people of their sex and why. As a family unit, we read a lot, play games, build, dance, sing and cook. We don’t subscribed to cable TV and I have never bought a Disney movie in my life (more on this another time, I guess). That’s not to say he’s never watch Treehouse TV or movies, as a student and parent, old VHS tapes of Dora the Explorer have saved my life and sanity at times.
My son loves cars, trucks and trains. He has two favourite stuffed animals (a platypus named, “Duckie” and a hippopotamus named, “Nietzsche” … yes, I know). His prefers Dora to Diego. We make necklaces and bake cookies. He loves our pet snake, and thinks her feedings are awesome.
He’s not very naturally athletic, but loves to run and play soccer. We can wrestle, but he’ll likely become upset quickly. He’s quick to get up and brush off the dirt, try again and forget the pain.
He has a huge sense of justice. As an atheist, it doesn’t surprise me that morality does not come from some divine source, but what does is his extent of positive behaviour. I can honestly only remember two or three occasions in the first three years of his life where he struck or stole. Although I would never jump to an idea of innate morality, perhaps if there existed more children like him I’d jump off the Hobbesian ship.
So why do I think that it is easier to raise a feminist son? In essence, I am already ahead of every person raising a female child. My main goal would be to teach him not to allow himself to benefit from the inherent injustice of females, the life long goal.
I feel at an advantage, because I will never have to combat the early sexualization of girls. I will not have battle the hundreds of thousands of images thrown at young girls, degrading their self-esteem. I will have to address it, but I won’t worry to the same extent of the damage it will do to my daughter. I won’t have fights over make-up or clothing.
I will get to talk to my son from an outsider perspective, how he thinks it affects his schoolmates at schools that are girls, how he treats his female friendships and relationships and how he can make a difference as a male.
And I know I can succeed. I already get a glimpse of how he sees the world. Mommy goes to school fulltime to help further the family’s socio-economic standing. Mommy is opinionated, intelligent and independent. Mommy is a woman; “she has a vagina” (eventually I will explain the difference between sex and gender, but I’m still trying to explain it to a sexist father). His teacher is woman. His Nana is a teacher (as is his Papa). I think I already know that I am central to his understanding of the universe. For either raising a son or a daughter, my actions and opinions will translate and be accepted by him. As a feminist, my son will learn to understand and become sensitive to key women’s issues well before most males. As an atheist, he will not be taught the Judeo-Christian male patriarchy line of bullshit. He will be taught that he is responsible for himself.
He will be taught to love. Which is to say is the biggest difference between raising a daughter and a son, for I believe I would say for a daughter, “to love wisely.” Foolish of me perhaps, but as a woman I feel as though I lost more in the gamble when I became pregnant than when my son’s father found out I was pregnant.
………. Oh, and if his future relationships don’t work out, he’ll learn to pay child support. Yeah, there was my personal dig of the day.
--C.
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