After Sarah's post on RB and the infamous Judith Butler, I've been thinking a lot about S, gender, and sexuality. For several weeks now, C and I have been commenting on S's fascination with women. My 3-month-old son will bat his big blue eyes and flash his charming smile at any woman he sees, but he will only smile for C and a few close male friends. He really seems to prefer women. Yesterday a good friend and I took S to a coffee shop, where we sat near a pretty undergrad studying macroeconomics. S immediately began smiling at her and "talking" to her; he only stopped when she finally acknowledged him. For the entire 45 minutes we were there, he made eyes at this attractive young woman, and quite honestly, he gave me the dirtiest look when we left. Does this mean anything? I certainly don't think so, but when C relayed this story to his mother last night, she expressed relief that "S isn't gay." Apparently since her youngest grandson is growing up with academic parents who vote Democrat and don't go to church regularly, she feared he would be gay. When C told me of his mother's comments, I rolled my eyes and went on with my nightly routine. But the comment bothered me. Frankly, I couldn't care less if my son is homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual; he can be whatever he wants to be so long as he grows up to be a caring, thoughtful individual who is considerate of other people. So why is my son's gender and sexuality so important to so many people?
I don't believe S has a gender right now, and I've read enough theory (and more to the point, I actually buy into a lot of the theory) to know his sex can change too. But to be honest, I'm not so progressive that I dress him in dresses or put bows on his head. I buy his clothes in the boys' department, and after he was born I was very happy to be able to do so rather than buying one more yellow sleeper, as yellow is apparently the only gender-neutral color. That said, gender seems so irrelevant at his age. He doesn't know the difference between a truck and a doll (and yes, he has both, and right now, he prefers the doll, although he doesn't know what a doll is), and he won't know the difference until C and I explain it to him. So why did my mother wait to begin making him a baby quilt until he was born? She wanted to know if she could use pink or blue. Why did my mother-in-law put aside the Madame Alexander catalog once S was born? Boys don't like dolls. If RB can realize that gender is malleable and ever-changing, why can't most adults? I think I'll invite RB over to play with S so she can begin to explain the complexities of gender to him.
2 comments:
I was in a store last week and saw a mother pull her toddler son quickly through the doll aisle saying "oh no no no, you don't want any of this because you're a BOY." And people find it hard to believe that children get messages early on about what it means to be a boy or girl! I just try to offer it all up for my daughter and nephew and let them decide what they like and not read into it as a permanent choice. Individual playing styles matter too. My nephew is a follower and will do anything my daughter does first.
Hi there, happy to find your blog and some others by academic grad-schooling moms. I'm eight months pregnant and feeling sort of isolated these days.
Your story struck a cord with me and reminded me of something that happened in my doctor's watingroom a few months ago. A women asked me the usual questions - when was I due, boy or girl? When I replied that I was having a boy, she asked me "what sport" was going to be the theme of my baby shower. I was totally taken aback and tempted to respond with something snotty like "sychronized swimming" but I held my tongue. After all, my unborn baby already owns two baseball caps so obviously I'm not as enlightened as I like to believe. One good thing came out of it, though, I used the incident in my class as an example of how gender is socialized and enforced EARLY!
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