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

[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*