Aside from asking dads if it's "their turn to babysit," one of the phrases and excuses that has absolutely driven me bonkers over the years is "Boys will be boys." Yes, this is related to my last post, but not closely enough that I felt like it warranted extending that entry. I tried. I hated it. So here we are.
I have a shirt that says, "Dads don't babysit. It's called parenting..." that my mom got for Jay and me. I love it. I wear it often. It gets compliments every time. We don't babysit our own kids. It should be what we signed up for. It's not the days of Archie Bunker any more.
I've heard that mindset reiterated in classrooms through my 20 year teaching career. It starts with "Boys will be boys." From there, we see men excused for things like "Locker room talk" and we excuse the things men do and say as acceptable, meanwhile if a woman asks sets boundaries we call her cold and a bitch.
This shit starts with kids. We hold boys and girls to different standards from the moment they can walk. So often we see boys wrestling, playing rough and tumble games, and discourage girls from the same. In my house, both kids, a son and a daughter, love science and math. Did you know they make girls' science kits? Yeah, they are often pink and the chemistry involves making perfume. Did you know they don't make boys' science kits? They're just called science kits.
Without getting too deep into the weeds, I know that boys like pink. My son wears pink. I LOVE wearing pink, purple, rainbows, etc. Sure, I like challenging gender norms. I also like doing what I can to make sure some of those norms are weakened.
Why can't boys wear nail polish? Caleb Williams, the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears, often wears it and there's an entire contingent of men screaming about how he's gay (As though being gay, in and of itself, is demeaning), trans or a million other things. In reality, he's a dude who likes his nails painted. Bro. Same.
There is a direct through-line from this type of gender stereotyping in childhood to Cornell, Shane Gillis, and the infamous Access Hollywood tape. Yes. That man is now a two-term, twice-impeached (So far!) president.
How Shane Gillis thought his "Women dress like whores" line was funny at all is beyond me. Is he working out in jeans? I have said this before, but how women dress at the gym is not a distraction. Forgive me if it seems like bragging or something, but never has a woman's skin distracted me from what I need to get done. Invoking the imagery of whores (A whole other demeaning road I won't go down today) is beyond the pale. Just admit you lack self control and go back to the Bud Light commercials. I've never found Gillis funny and it seems like every time he begins to fade from the public conscience, he does something misogynistic just to make sure he's talked about again.
The idea that "Boys will be boys" and cannot control certain parts of their psyche or behavior should be insulting for every male on the planet. We are going to regulate what women wear, say, and do because it might cause men to "stumble," as it's referred to in evangelical circles.
It ain't causing a damn thing. We are making that choice and then blaming someone else for our behavior. As though we don't have agency over ourselves. I'm no less a man because a belly button and shoulders at the gym have never made me drop weights or fall off the treadmill.
Anger and lashing out is not inherently male. It's not inherently female. Whether we realize it or not, we have very opposite reactions to children who are showing the same emotions. It's not ladylike, and boys will be boys.
As recently as my last post I mentioned how I joke that women are superior to men in every single way. It is a joke, no point on the gender spectrum has any inherent superiority to any other, but the ongoing allowance for boys to "be boys" certainly has with it the implicit idea that males are less intelligent and thus unable to control themselves.
Boys can be taught to control their impulses. I have absolutely engaged in "locker room" talk. I'm not proud or ashamed of that. It is what it is, but it doesn't mean that that talk, those ideas, ever took my ability to control myself.
It starts by raising the standard for boys to the standard that girls are generally held to while also allowing girls the mistakes we allow boys. Things can still be pink and bright if some kids are interested in that, but we don't have to code that for "girls." The idea of girls colors, characters, and interests or boys colors, characters, and interests should be so obsolete that it's almost a joke.
Raising the standards will raise better people.
