Thinky thoughts on gender

[jenn_unplugged]

Ah, football. If only I found the sport as exciting as my husband does. It would certainly make for some great couple bonding time. Today is one of the most beautiful days we've had in months, and it would be a perfect day to go for a walk, for a drive, to the lake -- anything. But of course, it's also the day of some hugely important NFL game, which means we will be holed up all afternoon in a dark windowless room watching it on the big screen. No, I'm not forced to be there, but my time with Doug is important to me. I'd rather be in the same room with him, even if I'm knitting or surfing the internet the whole time.

And speaking of knitting, my Sheepy Pants pattern arrived today! I'm so excited! Sheepy pants are a kind of knit-it-yourself wool soaker. There's more info at that link, but wool soakers are basically diaper covers made of knitted wool. They're breathable (so better than plastic or synthetic covers) and surprisingly waterproof. Apparently you only have to wash them if they get soiled with poop, so they're really easy to take care of. And something very useful I can knit for Boo! I'm so excited. I have a stash of wool that I may well dig into tomorrow evening when my current project is done.

Which brings me to this thinky thought: Tomorrow afternoon we'll (hopefully) find out if Boo is a boy or a girl. This is one of those Big Moments in pregnancy, you know? It's not only the halfway point, but it's the point at which the fetus stops being an "it" and starts being a he or a she. It's suddenly a lot easier to visualize that little baby in your arms when you know the gender.

And man, do I ever feel weird about that. I really hate that people pin so much to gender. I mean, you do sort of have to wait to pick out a name until you know gender, unless you have a list of gender neutral names you love. But the other stuff bothers me -- that you will paint the baby's room either blue or pink, you'll start buying frilly little dresses or t-shirts of favorite sports teams, that sort of thing. And worst of all, I fear that people begin to limit their child based on gender from that very moment.

You know what I mean: envisioning either soccer practices or dance lessons; a room full of dolls or toy trucks; sitting in the stands cheering him on at sports events or watching her go off on her first date. For many people, it's one or the other, but usually not both.

Don't get me wrong. I don't underestimate the biological power of gender in our lives, nor do I necessarily think the world would be a better place if we were all gender-neutral. But I am disturbed by the implied homophobia in keeping all things "girly" far from baby boys, by the implied misogyny in assuming "gender-neutral" means "non-feminine".

I'm not sure how to navigate this, honestly. I've been happily plugging along until now, prepared for either gender. The room is decked out in soft greens and yellows (sage green being one of my favorite colors of late), and there are tons of references to animals, stuff that I see neither as gender-specific nor as anti-feminine. I love animals, and to a large extent Boo's room is for me, you know? I've picked out clothes that just say "baby" to me, soft bits of fluffy white fabric adorned with ABC blocks and cuddly teddy bears. If Boo turns out to be a girl, I'll probably add some pinks and purples to the mix; if a boy, the same with shades of blue. I won't do much more than that. But even that disturbs me a bit. Those are just colors. Why do they signify so much?

I'm used to being around people for whom gender and gender roles are fairly fluid, but to what extent is that natural, and to what extent is it a conscious effort on the part of people to reject traditional gender stereotypes? I've never been a girly girl, by any stretch. When I was a child, I didn't care if my hair was combed or if my clothes matched, or if my nails were painted or even clean. I was in the sixth grade before I started picking my own clothes to wear to school, and even then I was playing with both Barbies and Star Wars action figures equally. I went through a period of about three years in junior high/high school during which I wore make-up, but I basically haven't worn it since. I don't know what I'd do with a girl who wanted to wear only pink and freaked out if her perfectly matched clothes got dirty. Similarly, what about a boy who hates musical theater and lives to play football?

I was able to happily ignore all of this for months -- years, really -- but after tomorrow, I can't. In a single turn of the sonographer's wrist, it won't just be about having a baby any more. It will being about having a son or a daughter. And that seems to change an awful lot of things. :-/

Comments

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

You are right that finding out the gender changes everything. I have an "anti-princess" mentality with Emma because I don't want her entire identity to be wrapped up in being a girl. She is first a person and then a girl. I don't know if that makes any sense but hopefully you get the picture.

We want to expose Emma and and future children we may have to a variety of activities and let them choose where they want to go in terms of interests. My parents put me in girl scouts, sports, dance, and piano lessons. I loved ballet and music when I was in elementary school and then in JRH and HS started enjoying sports more. I'm so thankful to my parents that they exposed me to a little bit of everything.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm also worried about the princess thing, but there's an extent to which I know it could still happen even if I don't introduce it. And I guess maybe that's the thing to keep in mind -- that I'd like my kids to feel like they can make whatever choices they want and to be who they want to be, without any restrictions or implied gender roles from me.

I feel like I got to be myself as a child, and I don't have any memory of anyone trying to make me into something I wasn't. I was a bookworm and a horse lover and had no sense of fashion whatsoever, and that was all okay.

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

Oh ... and good luck tomorrow. Please post when you get home! I'm so excited for you and Doug.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll post as soon as I've made all the requisite phone calls. ;-)

[teleute.livejournal.com]

We've had a couple of techs tell us (already!!) that baby is probably a boy. The sonographer I saw yesterday said 'probably, but if you go out and buy boy clothes, keep the receipts'.

We're fussing through the fact that we both wanted a girl (*shame*) and prefer girls names to boys names (*shame*). As I said to Adrian last night - I think the best reason to find out early is so you don't have any disappointment on the day!

But this comes with a whole load of emotional baggage, because as you said above - why do we pin so much on gender? I thought I was a pretty neutral on the whole gender thing (it doesn't make any difference to life etc etc) and yet, I want a girl. Admittedly, I want a girl so I have an outlet for all my frilly pink desires that I don't give into on my *own* body, but still, I feel very odd about wanting a girl, and at the same time claiming that gender makes no difference.

Of course we won't know for sure for another month or so (20w ultrasound), but I was pretty sure baby was a boy for the first 9 weeks or so, before Adrian pointed out that if baby was a girl it was odd I was always referring to baby as 'he'.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

Wow, how amazing that they could tell already! Every time we've had a U/S, Boo was not in a position to make it easy to tell. And my uterus didn't come up when it should have, which meant all the pictures were still a bit fuzzy. This should be a very different-looking sonogram!

I think I had a preference for a girl until I actually got pregnant. I always imagined myself with daughters, probably because I had a sister and most of my cousins growing up were girls. It was hard for me to imagine having a boy. I think I've just put gender out of my mind for the last few months, knowing it was information I would eventually have and I just had to be patient. At this point, I don't really have a preference, which surprises me.

But I could totally see how easy it would be to have a preference, and how that would be really guilt-inducing. After all, we've both spent a long time trying to get pregnant at all, and shouldn't we just be happy that we're having healthy babies? But it's not that simple. And the fact that you struggled to get here doesn't mean you don't have a right to all of those emotions.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

I've heard that story more than once! I guess it would be hard to see your children pick the stereotypical things after you worked so hard to make sure they had a large array of options. People I know who've had that experience said that they were genuinely surprised by the impact of other kids and the expectations of teachers when their child went to pre-school, that that was the point at which their influence seemed to lose a lot of the weight they'd carried earlier. We're social animals, and children are susceptible to the influences and expectations of their peers.

Good luck!

[afb.livejournal.com]

I've had lots of thoughts about gender identity over the last couple of years, mainly stemming from the fact that mine seems to be awfully fluid, not very important to my self-image. I honestly don't know how I got that way. I know my parents didn't try to give me any nudges toward one thing or another, not on purpose, but when it came to toys, I got all the Strawberry Shortcake and She-Ra stuff I wanted, but I never had many Transformers, which I liked way better. I was a G.I. Joe fan, but my parents didn't even seem to notice.

Maybe part of it comes from parents noticing the things that they expect to see in their kids. My parents expected me to like softer things with girl protagonists, so they paid attention, but they didn't expect me to be a fan of playing soldier/cowboy/whatever, so any interest in those things just went under the radar somehow. I suspect if I ever have a kid, my goal will be to try really hard not to seem surprised by them liking or being interested in something that is atypical for their gender. "You want a doll?" can mean a whole lot of things to a boy, and "You want a truck?" can mean a whole lot of things to a girl. Kids pick up on so much!

Oh, and I wish I'd realized that when playing Star Wars, I didn't always have to be Leia just because she was the girl. I always wanted to be Luke but never quite grasped that I could do that. ^_^

In semi-related news, I ran across a booklet full of these lovely Africa-inspired cross-stitching patterns and thought of you right away! There was a zebra and a giraffe and a lion and something I can't remember right now. It's such a cool nursery theme. :D (You know my kids would get sheep from birth until they were old enough to say "Mom, do I HAVE to wear the shirt with the sheep on it again?!")

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

You know, I didn't spend much time thinking about being female until the infertility became such a big part of my life. It was hard for it not to be a huge part of my identity after that, and it was weird for it suddenly to be this big thing.

I agree that expectations are really important, and I think it's probably all you can do to be sure your children know what yours are in the areas that are important to you. In the end, they get to pick the kind of people they want to be, whether it's what you would have chosen or not. I suppose I don't want to put any limits on that, but there's not much I can do about the limits the rest of the world places on people. That's scary.

[nanafromnc.livejournal.com]

Monday will be a long day for me... I can not wait to see what gender little boo is... I just want to know...Love Mom

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

It's going to be pretty bizarre to find out, I have to say. It's going to stop being abstract about then, and start to seem a lot more real. Of course, Donna said the moment it really seemed real to her was when they finally brought Aidan to her, so maybe it'll be a few more months before reality strikes. :-P

[nanafromnc.livejournal.com]

That will be a moment that you will never forget!!! Just to hold your baby for the first time....You will feel like your heart is going to explode with love...
Love you so, mom

[(Anonymous)]

I think we've managed a mix of it all. Karl has his stuffed kitty he likes to sleep with, and Jayne likes to build with the Legos. But at the same time, they've very much split themselves along traditional lines, without any true prompting from us. Karl is NUTS about cars and trains and building things, while Jayne is a little mommy with baby dolls and clothes and carriages. They've all had equal access to the other things but they chose this way as preferences. Katie used to be very neutral - I wonder if it's a first child thing? - but now she's all about being a girl, from a puberty POV, anyway. She wants to play ball in the spring and reads and writes. She's my puzzle. (Oh, and you'll be glad to know, she is in the advanced math course that TAG students are given. :D)

I also agree a bit with the disappointment at birth issue stated above. I wanted another girl when we learned Karl was a boy, and it took me a few days to get over what felt like a loss - to not have a girl - and then I absolutely fell in love with the idea of a boy - and he's mama's boy, all right. Still lets me hug and snuggle him, although he's going on ten.

OMG. Going on TEN?!? When the hell did that happen?

And you'll discover that, too. Time flies.

With Jayne, she was my little wish-for baby. I wished for one more baby, one more girl, that I would have one more chance to get the nursing thing right, and all my wishes came true. She's my magical number three.

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

whoops, on the desktop and forgot to get logged in!

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

I think we've managed a mix of it all. Karl has his stuffed kitty he likes to sleep with, and Jayne likes to build with the Legos. But at the same time, they've very much split themselves along traditional lines, without any true prompting from us. Karl is NUTS about cars and trains and building things, while Jayne is a little mommy with baby dolls and clothes and carriages. They've all had equal access to the other things but they chose this way as preferences. Katie used to be very neutral - I wonder if it's a first child thing? - but now she's all about being a girl, from a puberty POV, anyway. She wants to play ball in the spring and reads and writes. She's my puzzle. (Oh, and you'll be glad to know, she is in the advanced math course that TAG students are given. :D)

I also agree a bit with the disappointment at birth issue stated above. I wanted another girl when we learned Karl was a boy, and it took me a few days to get over what felt like a loss - to not have a girl - and then I absolutely fell in love with the idea of a boy - and he's mama's boy, all right. Still lets me hug and snuggle him, although he's going on ten.

OMG. Going on TEN?!? When the hell did that happen?

And you'll discover that, too. Time flies.

With Jayne, she was my little wish-for baby. I wished for one more baby, one more girl, that I would have one more chance to get the nursing thing right, and all my wishes came true. She's my magical number three.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

I love hearing people's stories about what they wanted for their children and how things turned out. It's really interesting to me. :-)

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

One nice thing about blue/pink is that it's really impossible to tell gender in infants, and considering that we have all these gendered pronouns floating around, I personally like being able to tell. Just look at it is as code for a clueless world full of people who all want to admire your child grammatically. :D

We're a one of each family, with a little boy who's into baseball and dinosaurs and likes his toenails painted and his hair fixed up with golden glittery hairgel and a little girl who defines princess and is way into Star Wars Legos and playing HARD. They figure out who they ARE on their own, I really think they do, and imo I'm not sure I WANT A. to forget she's female for as long as I did. It was a hard thing, realizing that I'd have to make all these life choices around bearing and raising my kids, because I wasn't particularly prepared for them. I'm not sure how to balance that against getting her to reach for everything she wants, but the biological truth of it is that the nature of the choices women have to make is just different, I think.

[jenn-unplugged.livejournal.com]

You know, I wasn't really that conscious of being female until I had to deal with infertility. That was the point at which I became very conscious of what it meant to me to be a woman, as opposed to a person, or an American, or a math graduate student, or whatever. I'd always been conscious of women's issues, of course, but being female had never really been at the top of the list when I thought of myself. Infertility changed all of that for me, because there was suddenly a huge part of me that was defective -- and it was the part that was inherently female. I still feel weird about that, you know?

It was a hard thing, realizing that I'd have to make all these life choices around bearing and raising my kids, because I wasn't particularly prepared for them.

You know, I don't think I thought about them much either, but always had this really naive idea that I wouldn't have to choose, that I could have everything. What caught me by surprise was the realization in the last year that I wanted to choose something different than what I'd always envisioned for myself. I need to email you about this actually, because I have an unexpected career opportunity that I think you can probably identify with and give me advice on. *looks shifty*

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

You know, I had my heart set on a girl, too. But when the call came for a boy, I said, "Hell, YES!"

I totally hate the way baby clothes are so gendered. I have twice managed to find flowery shirts that were meant for a girl, but which Sam can wear and still look..."manly."

Oh, I hate that I even say it! And yet.... Yeah, the whole kids and gender thing is disturbing. And it's probably natural that from about age 3 to age--whatever, that they will focus on gender stereotype. I think the main thing is to let them know that whatever they're into is cool.

Which is why I'm gritting my teeth against the possibility that the padawan will be into football. I think I can handle most guy things, but not that! I HATE football. Stupidest game EVER.