Friday, October 19, 2012

Why it's important to act like a lady or the importance of manners

I'm part of an online forum for parents in our neighborhood, which I occasionally look at while I'm drinking my coffee in the morning.  Amidst the chaff about how vaccines, toy guns, princesses, and refined sugar are the root of all evil are occasional informational and/or thought-provoking posts.  The former are good fodder for snark, but the latter are why I subscribe to and occasionally contribute to this forum.  One such thought-provoking comment was a response to a recent post about a mom's concern about her language.  The person writing the comment made the observation that swearing is a benign example of how women and moms worry too much about being "nice".  They wrote that they believe that this pressure is damaging to women and plays into the cultural stereotype of moms having to be nice/good/accepting all the time.  She advised the person posting to swear away and revel in causing a bit of "cognitive dissonance". 

I chewed on this idea on my drive home from work that day because I both agree and disagree with this statement.  I agree that many women my age were encouraged as children to not stand up for themselves or pursue their interests to the same degree as their brothers, cousins, or male friends.  I remember being routinely told off for asserting myself and seething every time I was encouraged to
to be "pleasant and agreeable" instead.  I grew up in an environment that did not prize outspoken women and had pretty rigid gender roles so this seethe boiled into a predictable teenage rejection of everything "nice" or "feminine".  Like all teenage rebellions, this wasn't particularly grounded in sound logic.  I believed that looking like a girl, using good manners, or being attracted to anything that my elders considered nice or appropriate was somehow colluding in a plot to force me down a path I didn't want to go.  Predictably, I wore mens' clothes, did sports, and read/listened to things with the maximum possible shock value.  Choosing to stand out had some positive effects.  I stayed out of trouble and learned lots of good life lessons thanks to sports and discovered some great bands and authors.  I also attribute the presence of many good things in my life to the choice to step away from the expectations that many of the adults around me had of girls and, by extension, of me.

Gradually, though I grew to realize that a wholesale rejection of "nice" or "feminine" served its purpose during my teens and early 20s, but is not applicable in the adult world.  As I've grown older, I've realized the importance of manners, and shockingly, of acting like a lady.  I believe that good manners, which includes being mindful of one's language, are an outward statement of self-respect.   People that are secure and respect themselves respect other people and can assert themselves without being aggressive or shrill.  I believe this is equally true for men and for women.  I also think that women tend to equate being aggressive and shrill with being strong, which I think is a mistake.  The ladies who I consider to be both my personal and professional role models are able to get what they want in life while managing to be (mostly) kind and respectful to other people.  This kindness and respect is what I consider to be acting like a lady.  Although the outward appearance of "lady-like" behavior is eerily similar to the one I grew up with, the rationale is much different.  Growing up, I was taught to use good manners to stifle dissent and to discourage me from asserting myself.  As an adult, I try to use what I was taught as a child to speak my mind and assert myself in a way that is respectful both of myself and of other people.  The difference also is that I understand when it's appropriate to be "nice" and "good" and when it's appropriate to unleash my inner fury.


Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Gender isn't completely fluid

Some people believe that gender should be completely fluid and that it's something that kids need to completely figure out on their own.  I disagree.  I believe that there is a broad range of gender-normative behavior and that each kid needs to figure out how to fit within these boundaries with adult help.  There are exceptions to this such as intersex individuals or kids that come from families with rigid gender roles, but let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that we're talking about anatomically normal kids from relatively open-minded families. 

I suppose this is why the attitude of crunchier parents towards their anatomically normal and normally identified sons' desire to play with Barbies or wear sparkly pink dresses in public creeps me out.  Kids don't know that certain things aren't ok unless adults tell them.  This doesn't mean I'm equating wearing girls' clothing with torturing kittens, but it's still something that's not quite acceptable in my book.  Maybe I'm more traditional in this way, but I still believe that it's good to tell a child that they need to fit themselves and their behavior into some relatively broad norms.  That same little boy doesn't have to play football or macho games with his friends to be masculine, but he also shouldn't be wearing a pink tutu.  Boy clothes can be boring, and a kid who wants to jazz up his wardrobe with a sparkly dress can be redirected into blinging out a shirt.  Although the two things are similar, one is on the girly end of socially acceptable, but the other crosses the line.  It's not that I don't think boys can be feminine or girls masculine, but there are limits. 

Going past these limits can make life really difficult and affect things like a kid's ability to make friends, focus at school (hard to do when teased), or develop aspects of themselves outside their gender identity.  I believe in pushing boundaries, but not to the extent that a small person's healthy development is compromised.  If my daughter wants to play football and/or dress like a dude, I'll probably encourage her to take a small step to the lady side.  Hockey, basketball, rugby, and soccer are all contact sports that people of both genders enjoy playing and are just as, if not more physically demanding than football.  Likewise, there are lots of gender neutral or menswear-inspired clothes that she can wear.  The difference is subtle, but it is the difference between a mannish woman and a person of unknown gender.  Unfortunately, she might be subject to ridicule for both, but falling within the broad definition of feminine will save her a lot of heartache.  I don't think this will be a problem for us because Ms Frog already seems like a girly girl, but who knows?

I don't think that everyone should be the same and I'm all for expanding definitions of "normal" whether it's gender, sexuality, religion, or life choices.  However, there are certain really broad things that I think people agree to do in a society in order to live, work, and play with others.  It's not required to like or even agree with these others, but it's necessary to be able to co-exist.  This co-existance requires some very broad similarities.  For instance, I've got very little in common with the mother of a Quiverfull family (speaking of rigid gender roles) who lives out in the boonies and home-schools her brood of 8 according to the precepts of the Bible.  However, we both identify as women and are both mothers so we could recognize each other enough to interact if necessary.  People in this culture break others down into either male or female and identifying someone as one or the other is a basic thing that governs the nature of an interaction between people.  I'm not arguing whether this is good or bad here, but acknowledging that it exists.  A family's definition of gender that is too broad or too restrictive can derail this process through hampering development of a gender identity that is both true to a particular child and falls within certain boundaries.