After yesterday's post advocating a more laissez-faire approach to "gender parenting", I was having second doubts.
Can girly princesses really have the same broad opportunities and skills in later life than girls do that have been encouraged to be more "gender neutral", or open to "male" interests and tasks? And vice versa, can men be expected to partake in a fair half of "female" tasks later on in life, if they have not been exposed to these early on in life?
As I mentioned, my own father encouraged me also to be good at "male" subjects, such as mathematics or electrical engineering (I was obsessed with building "robots" with blinking light-bulb eyes at some point as a kid). He also included me in DIY projects as home, including changing the light-bulb, hammering together IKEA-furniture, and putting up wallpaper. I can do all the latter better than my husband, who is - a public disgrace here - absolutely appalling at any DIY.
When I went to school in Finland (between the ages of 9 and 15), I took sewing classes for several years. We had to choose between sewing or wood-works. Most girls chose sewing, but a few also did wood-works. (All of us had to take cooking classes, which included lessons in cleaning and hand washing woolly sweaters.) For half a year, though, we had to switch classes, i.e. most boys learned some basic sewing, and we learned how to hammer, saw, drill, etc.
Can men (including my husband) who have never been bought to sew on a button or wash delicate laundry be expected to do so later on in life? Can women who have no idea about electric cables or drilling be expected to change a light bulb or drill a hole in the wall? I think the obvious answer is yes - these are pretty moronic tasks. We do, however, tend to fall into distributing household tasks according to what one already knows. I haven't ever taught my husband to mend clothes (and he can forget about building any IKEA furniture).
Taking this a step further, can women be expected to become e.g. engineers if they have always been supported in choosing subjects that their peers choose ("soft sciences"), or what they instinctively feel they are interested in (an issue difficult to prove - do we have intrinsic, non-socialized interests?). A forced "other role" exposing, such as the one above with sewing-wood-works, may be an eye-opener, but I'm sure it doesn't make much of a difference in providing "skills" to the other sex that would be of much use later on, if the rest of one's schooling is spent on what is "female"/"male".
I find my views here to be extremely clear on the "basic" issues (Husband, start sewing your own damned buttons on!), but very confused on the more "complicated" issues (Daughters, I doubt I want to force you to take only physics and maths later on, even if you are dying to take literature and theatre...).
I'm probably sounding like a broken record by now, but I do think that exposure to various activities will allow individuals to determine what seems interesting/exciting to them. Sure, there are probably more females interested in sewing, knitting, crafting etc. and more males interested in hammering, sawing, drilling, etc. but allowing our kids to experience it all and see what's interesting about different kinds of activities (there's a surprising amount of "engineering" that goes into constructing a garment) will hopefully allow them to decide for themselves what they like and are good at. I, for one, LOVED my wood-working class in middle school. Yes, I spend more time with my knitting needles and sewing machine these days than with a miter saw, but I feel as though that's been my choice rather than something that has been predetermined.
ReplyDeleteGender parenting, interesting issue. I was about to say that it'll be a couple of years before gender parenting really concerns me but I guess it has already started. I don't want to dress my little daughter (of 8 months) all in pink or very princessy (and not necessarily because I don't like the colours but because of my principles), but on the other hand it bothers me a little when other people think she's a boy. So I'm veering toward a little red, purple, grey, brown... colours that can be neutral (ok, not so much the purple). Both the blue jean dungarees and the pink-red-glittery dungarees we got as gifts are a little too gender-fixed for my taste. It bothers me that this stupid clothes thing bothers me, already at her tender age!
ReplyDeleteI think I very much agree with you, Katri - both on the basic issues as well as a more general confusion.
I definitely want my daughter to be able to drill holes in a wall or build her own shelves, and I would want a son to be able to sew buttons on and correctly fill a washing machine. I was always proud to tell people that I learned to hang wallpaper or sanding and painting a door from my mother.
But on the matter of which profession to learn I can only argue for society as a whole - it would be a good thing if more girls wanted to become engineers and more boys kindergarten teachers but my own children have every right to choose totally gender-clicheed jobs if they want to. I think a stronger argument for me against my daughter wanting to become a nurse or kindergarten teacher would be education - if I'm honest I guess I expect her to have an academic education (and if she's no statistical outlier for whatever reason she will) and then it wouldn't make any sense to become a nurse anymore. And aren't most jobs for which you need an academic education pretty gender neutral?
Thanks for your comment, Jonna! I can't wait to see whether your views change in the upcoming years, once the kids start choosing their own clothes, and you get more and more as presents. I started off exactly the way you did with my eldest. But the amount of pink, frilly and princessy is currently extreme - not because I buy it, but because others do. Ditto with wooden, sustainable vs. plastic, throw-away toys.
DeleteI had to laugh at the thought of us two - both rather short - insisting on changing light bulbs, in order to prove a point, even when our partners are twice our height :)
I'll have to give that one a thought: does academic education lead to gender-neutral jobs? I wonder whether that only applies to the German dual degree and apprenticeship model, as e.g. in Finland you study at a university to become nearly anything, including a kindergarden teacher. And then there's the question whether a gender neutral job is sufficient: what about gender neutral positions (i.e. the management / leadership debate)?
Thanks for the food for thought! Hugely appreciate it.