Smrt Lernins

For those invested in gender [stereo]typing, it is very important that you do not allow your son to do this (if you can’t find it, upper right hand picture — PINK TOENAILS? On a BOY? WORLD IS ENDING!). People might say ridiculous things like this. They’re afraid you might turn him into this [which, to the gender-typing, is a BAD THING(tm)].

On the other hand, the gender [stereo]typing set strongly encourages you to buy these and these, because it would be awful if your baby girls were mistaken as boys.

So, to summarize:

Playful bonding time with mom and son: BAD!

Dressing your infant daughter like a can-can dancer: GOOD!

UPDATE: Reader Sandhya would like to share this link so we can all learn how long-standing is the history of boys wearing blue and girls wearing pink (hint: it’s not really all that long-standing).

I’m pretty lucky.

I’m a white, heterosexual, middle class woman. My gender identity is the same as my biological sex. I hold a postgraduate degree. In short, with the exception of sexism and the occasional prejudice against Southern accents, I go through my life free of discrimination. It’s pretty easy to be white, straight, and middle class in the U.S. Patchfire likes to call me “Apple Pi,” because my life (while quirky, hence “pi” rather than “pie”) appears to be the all-American ideal of suburban normalcy.

I don’t make assumptions about my children’s gender or sexual identification, however. I don’t know who they will grow up to be. I don’t know who they’ll love. I can, however, do my best to create a world where they will be treated as equals no matter who they are. I can fight for their right to marry whomever they love, to raise children, to get a job wherever they are qualified to work, regardless of whether a church thinks that’s “right” with God. Even if my kids all grow up straight and cisgendered, I would still fight for the rights of your kids, because no mother’s child should be denied the right to love, to have a family, and to just live his/her life, simply because someone else believes in a literal and bigoted version of a book written 2000+ years ago. ETA: I was linked to this lovely video made by a young man who has suffered through and overcome some of the very bigotry I’m talking about.

This morning, I woke up to a post on the WTM forums about whether or not the ENDA, a law that would prohibit workplace/hiring discrimination against gay/transgendered people, threatens “religious freedom”. Really, you guys? I’m flabbergasted that the very notion of gays being treated equally under the law, at least where employment is concerned, is that threatening to you. Apart from the fact that the law specifically exempts religious employers, do people really believe that gays are conspiring to take over the churches*? Are people really still buying into the ludicrous notion of a Gay Agenda?

I don’t understand how you can think of yourself as a good person while campaigning for another human being to have fewer rights than you. It’s so inhuman to treat someone else as less human. It’s unpatriotic to want to steal the rights from another citizen, rights that you so carelessly enjoy, because you don’t like the cut of their jib or who they love. The absolute gall of thinking your religious beliefs trump someone else’s basic human rights, let alone actively working to deny those rights, is one huge reason why I’ve drifted further and further from identifying w/ any of the primary religious groups in this country. Is this what Christ would have wanted? I seriously doubt it.

To that end, I’m a member/sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign, which fights for equality for all people — straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, cisgendered, transgendered. These issues include, among many others, the right to marry, to have biological children without legal threat, to adopt, to be employed without fear of termination based on sexual/gender idendification, to serve in the military without fear of discharge based on sexual/gender identification, and to be free from hate crimes. I will also soon (I pick a new organization for donation each quarter) be sponsoring the Southern Poverty Law Center, which works against hate groups of all ilks.

Bigotry and discrimination is just plain stupid. I’d like my kids to grow up in a world that isn’t stupid, thanks.

*Perhaps they think that because anti-choice pharmacists could infiltrate pro-choice dispensaries and then stand in their “religious freedom” to refuse to dispense the very medications they were hired to dispense. Funny how bigots think everyone as small-minded as they.

I’m sure a lot of you remember the Barbie doll that said “Math class is tough! Let’s go shopping!” (often misquoted as “Math is hard!” Same sentiment.). With a new awareness of how culture and the education system encouraged the dumbing-down of girls in math, parents reacted quite vocally to this doll. The last thing girls needed, they said, was a doll who told them math was too difficult and that vanity and other shallow frivolities were where it’s at. Mattel responded by removing that phrase from the doll’s litany of inane statements.

Girls aren’t bad at math by nature. They don’t struggle more because of something miswired in their brains. The difficulties with math (or perceived difficulties) were programmed by culture — girls were treated as being poor at math, so many rose to fulfill that destiny. We’ve gotten better about that. Recent studies have shown a marked improvement in how girls performed in math when taught in a gender-equitable manner. When encouraged in science and math, rather than solely in the arts, girls not only perform as well as male peers, but excel. Time magazine had an entire issue on women in math. When all is said and done, girls are not bad at math. They’re just told they are, repeatedly, by society and institutions, until they believed it. Now many of us are working our damnedest to make they aren’t being told to believe it.

Today, I stumbled upon a t-shirt listing on Hyena cart, for a pink shirt made from fabric that says “I AM TOO PRETTY TO DO MATH.” Yes, too pretty to do math. That this fabric is even manufactured is repugnant, but the listing for this shirt is simply beyond the pale:

I AM TOO PRETTY TO DO MATH. Youth Raglan T, YPS 10, 12, 14, or 16

Most of us have an instant imagine of someone who this suites…
that little lady who just HATES doing her math.
Or that girl who just knows she is too pretty for this…
or the one who just don’t have the time to waste doing math.

Apparently, girls might also be too pretty to use proper grammar, capitalization, or punctuation.

Too pretty to do math. “Too pretty for this.” “One who just don’t have the time to waste doing math.” Too pretty to do math. Waste time doing math. Really? Really? ”

What is the message here? Don’t worry your pretty head with thinking, because it’s a waste of your time? What would be a better use of that time? Finding a good husband, perhaps? Or maybe the message is that only ugly women need to do math, because only ugly women need to have any kind of career. Never mind that beauty fades, husbands leave, and you little bubble heads who can’t add 2 and 2 are going to have an awfully hard time balancing your little pink sparkly checkbooks.

Does the work-at-home mom who made this listing, with its sexist and insulting message, and who chose Psalm 139:13 to adorn her store banner, believe God knit girls together too stupid for math, too vapid to do anything but fluff their hair and paint their nails? Does she really believe beauty and brains are not only mutually exclusive, but that beauty is preferable to intelligence, effort, or achievement? Who will buy this shirt, I wonder, and what lessons are they teaching their daughters? Certainly not that a girl can be both smart and beautiful, that there’s a great deal of value in making an effort (even if it doesn’t come naturally to you), or that girls can do anything.

For the record, Patchfire’s daughter, Eclectic Girl, is a math whiz, doing algebra at age 9. Math comes as naturally to her as breathing, or as naturally as language comes to Captain Science. She’s a pretty, vivacious, empowered little girl with stunning eyes and a bright pink room…and she can knock your freaking socks off with math. Don’t tell me that a girl can be “too pretty” for math. Don’t you dare.

If you’re looking for t-shirts with girl-empowering, intelligence-valuing messages, try Mind Candy Clothing.