When I started The Girl Revolution I had experience being a daughter, girlfriend, wife and mother of a very young girl. It would be fair to say that I believed boys and girls are “basically the same except for social conditioning.”
The social conditioning appeared to be more in the boy’s favor than the girl’s. This was upsetting.
If I could just right the wrong, make the perception shift and give girls a more equitable social conditioning, well that would be my Girl Revolution.
I don’t think I agree with my former self. I’m not sure the theory pans out in real life. It hasn’t proven true.
Two main things happened to shift my perception:
* I’ve been married to a kind and decent man for nearly a decade now. The new has worn off. Neither of us are as motivated to “attract” the other because we accomplished the whole child-bearing thing. It’s a different sort of relationship than I’ve previously had with boyfriends or male family members. The longer I’m married to this particular man, the more convinced I am that men and women have entirely different motivators, ways of relating to the world, and even primary values. These appear to be inherent. The puzzling part is why I, and other women I know, are so baffled, confused, angry and in denial about how inherently different women and men are.
* I had a son. He is very much like his sister in a great deal of ways. However, he is also inherently different. Intuitively I know that pushing him to do flash cards is the wrong method to teach him his alphabet, just as intuitively I know that it was the perfect way to engage my daughter. I attempt to buy them gender-neutral toys like Tinker Toys, yet I notice that she has played with them twice in a year and he has played with them nearly every day. She has no interest in the cars. Dinosaurs do not hold her attention. He never wants to talk, she wants to talk constantly. He doesn’t look me or anyone else in the eye, she makes eye contact all day long.
Men and boys really are . . . different. Could that be true?
My perception of how The Girl Revolution is going to go down has shifted.
The Girl Revolution is far more achievable, fun and exciting not if girls and boys are the same and equity is achieved. Because the bar for equity – throughout the entire Women’s Revolution – has been masculine and patriarchal.
No good enough.
That bar is far to low.
The Girl Revolution will be achieved when girls and women are acknowledged, respected and rewarded socially, politically, economically, familially and relationally for their inherent feminine selves.
There is an economic shift going on right this very second on the planet. I predict girls and women are going to come out ahead. Except, not the way we’ve pushed forward in the last 35 years, pushing against our natural instincts and theirs. Yes, we can and yes, we did. Still, its so much harder to go against the flow than with the flow.
But, its time to take a deep breath and refocus, readjust, re-assess. I think we’re going to stake a claim to something much, much bigger. We’re discovering a strength in ourselves that the planet has not yet known before.
What do we really want? What does femininity seek to achieve for its precious daughters? What does it seek to achieve for its precious sons?
I suspect it has very little to do with achieving economic equality in the status quo. In fact, I suspect with the entry of truly honored femininity we’ll breeze right by the low bar of equity we’ve set for ourselves previously.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
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4 comments ↓
This is how I feel about the whole feminist movement. I don’t want exact equality…I dont’ want to deny my maternal or feminine instincts in order to prove my worth in the world. That’s the wrong approach and it is shortchanging women everywhere. I actually think the feminist movement has made our lives harder in many ways. We’ve created a world in which we are expected to inhabit every role at the same time and thats unrealistic and unfair. But when we compain about it – our male counterparts are confused because they thought that’s what we wanted.. Does that make sense?
Unfortunately, even in a gender role neutral home, your children are going to be exposed to social cues from inside and outside the house. Studies show that many homes that push gender neutral behaviors are not as neutral as they seem. Avoiding pink and blue is one thing, but studies show that parents who think they’re not enforcing gender stereotypes are playing rougher with their boys, and cuddling girls more.
Because we can’t isolate kids in a totally gender neutral environment, we may never know how much is biology and how much is social conditioning.
Does that mean we should give up on equality? NO. Does that mean we should pretend that women and men are not only equal but identical? NO.
But what it means is that we should not assume that our children will be one thing or another based on gender, or that what set of reproductive organs one has determines one’s place in life.
I agree with both of you.
I do want to clarify: I am grateful to old-school feminism because without economic power women would have remained slaves.
Economic power is huge. Its just not the full expression of what we are becoming.
See that’s just it though Tracee, during the time I was working full time, taking on extra stuff at work, coming home to clean house, cook and raise kids,..I felt pretty ‘slav-ish’…
I see your point.
Except the only true slaves . . . by which I mean people who are owned by others, have no personal choices or autonomy over their physical bodies, no rights to own land, participate in government and are bought and sold like cattle, etc. Actual Slaves are enslaved because they do not have the right or ability to make money. It is a woman’s right to work that makes her free.
Look at the 3rd world – the best thing you can do to free a literal slave is to pay off their debt, buy their freedom, make her economically independent and help her start a business. Economic independence makes her free.
While you may have felt like a slave – and believe me I get it – you are still a free woman with the right to own property, start a business, invest money, earn a paycheck, get a job, get health benefits, acquire social security, divorce your spouse, vote for your elected officials, have children outside the bounds of marriage, etc. NONE of these rights would have been yours without the work and sacrifice traditional feminists.
There was a price to be sure. But, worth it because we get to choose where we go from here.
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