I love the passing of time

I don’t think my husband is an exception. I think he’s just a man who somehow found the strength and self-confidence to fight his way out of the stereotype.

I, personally, think that gender stereotypes are just as limiting, just as damaging, just as ridiculous as racial stereotypes. 100 years ago, everyone, men -and- women, for the most part, agreed that it would be a complete waste of time, money and resources for a woman to attend medical school. Women weren’t believed to have the mental capacity or fortitude for that kind of work.

But, we fought it. For years & years & years. And, now, it’s not at all surprising to see women doctors.

And, just yesterday at soccer practice, one of the mom’s told me that she’d heard that girls were now scoring higher than boys, across the board, on standardized testing. That would have been thought to have been impossible 100 years ago.

Some of the gender stereotypes that were believed to be simple facts at that time in history have been disproven. That’s a good thing. But, obviously, some live on.

Saying that men are, by nature, not nurturers, puts limits on them. Not just on ‘men’ generically, but on my own son. Your own sons, too. It also puts limits on your daughters. It perpetuates the myth that there are some things that they will not be able to achieve, unless they are bold enough to stand up and be counted among the ‘exceptions’. It discourages them from even trying.

I also think that saying women are nurturers by nature leaves women who aren’t nurturers (or, who aren’t at a point in their lives where they are able to nurture) feeling like somehow less of a woman if they admit their ’shortcomings’.

I suppose before I can even begin to believe that a person, by virtue of their physical makeup, is going to behave in a particular way, I would need to see some studies that prove that the behavior is linked to the physical features. For example, if we could find a man who was, somehow, never exposed to societal pressures that tell him what his gender was ’supposed to’ do, then give him a baby to raise, I wonder how he would do. If it’s just wired into men’s nature to be unable to properly nurture, then I guess he wouldn’t have a clue how to care for the child. I like to think that he’d do just as well in that situation as a woman who was also raised with no societal cues.

So, I’m going to do the best I can to question all of the beliefs that I was raised with, all of the the limits that I learned to accept for myself and for men. I’m going to try to teach the next generation that the preceding generations (including ours) might be wrong about some of these things.

When Annie plays with dolls, I’m going to tell her how proud I am of her & that, maybe, she’s going to be a great mommy some day. When she does experiments in the kitchen, I’m going to tell her how proud I am of her & that, maybe, she’s going to be a great scientist some day.

When Shelby plays with dolls, I’m going to tell him how proud I am of him & that, maybe, he’s going to be a great daddy some day. When he does experiments in the kitchen, I’m going to tell him how proud I am of him & that, maybe, he’s going to be a great scientist some day.

Sorry if this whole post doesn’t make much sense & seems so impassioned. This is a hot button issue for me. Really makes me see red. And, well, you know how it is, women aren’t that good at making organized, rational arguments.

At soccer practice tonight, one of the moms said that she had heard that girls were now surpassing boys in standardized testing, across the board.

So, we’ve won! Somewhere between the time when educating a girl was thought to be a waste of time and now, women have got the confidence to make sure that our girls are given every opportunity to get a full education, one that, perhaps, even caters to the way that girls learn. Now, of course, this leads to the premise that girls learn differently from boys. I tend to believe that that in itself is a generalization that does not apply to all girls and all boys, but, perhaps, applies to the majorities in each group. I also believe that society has taught each group that they have different expectations for each of them, and, therefore, they learn different behaviors and attitudes.

But, somewhere along the line, our boys lost. Not just the men that we are, individually and as a group, in competition with, but the boys who are our sons and brothers. In our mad dash to get equal rights for ourselves, we somehow left our men and boys behind. And, rather than equality, we have a competition that we are determined to win.

I hope that wasn’t the intention of the women’s rights movement. I hope it wasn’t to ‘win’ or to get retaliation on the men, because those men are all some mother’s son. Instead, I hope, that we were striving for equality, for the removal of gender limits for everyone.

Some say that women are born to be nurturers. I say that women are taught to be nurturers by society, from our births. There are historical precedents for this. We do have functioning breasts. And, men are physically more prepared for the hunt. So, as a general rule, due to these physical features, things tended to fall along those lines - physically. But, these days, a mom can nurse & still get out. Dad can bottle-feed, too. And, anyone can do the ‘hunting’ at their workplace and at the grocery store.

But, nature or nurture , women are supposed to be nurturers. It’s something we’re proud of in ourselves. We think it’s a great thing about women. But, do we only nurture other females? Do we only want other women to know that they can live without limits? Don’t we also nurture our boy children and want them to know the all of the joy that is available to them? Don’t we want our boy children to be able to make choices based on their own desires and strengths, rather than being limited in their choices to only things ‘male’?

Women have worked hard to earn the right to choose to be nurturers or providers. With each passing generation, there is less and less stigma attached to a woman who chooses non-traditional paths. In fact, her strength is celebrated; even more so if she chooses to be both, to live her life without gender limits.

But, still, to this day, if a man shows a more ‘feminine’ side to himself, he is ostracized, laughed at, considered to be unusual and somehow defective as a man. And, still, to this day, men are expected to cede all of their more ‘feminine’ desires to women.

To this day, a boy is gently nudged into believing that women are nurturers and men are providers. They may know in their hearts that this is wrong, but surely feel all alone in those beliefs, and feel that that notion would be hard to prove wrong. I’m guessing they probably feel about as overwhelmed and frightened about fighting for their rights to nurture as the first woman did who fought for her right to go to medical school. How ridiculous! You can’t do that! You’ll never be able to fight all the stereotypes and be taken seriously.

I think the time has come to stop talking about women’s rights, and, instead, to start working for all human’s rights to follow their own hearts and to live without gender limits. And, we, as the nurturers, need to start giving our children, all of them, boys and girls, the strength to fight the stereotypes and find happiness in their lives, wherever their hearts take them.