Making Misogynists/Misandrists

The question raised by the wonderful Izzie earlier has had me thinking all day, even while writing about an entirely different topic on Student Mum!

I wish Izzie had time to write a blog, so I could share her with you properly, she's amazing. Very astute and insightful, and very knowledgeable about the history of feminism. Am looking forward to sharing the interesting comments on my earlier post with her, and hearing what she has to say about it too.

This post is partly a continuation of the last one, and partly inspired by a post about engendering, on (un)relaxeddad's excellent blog (there's a link to it on Student Mum), which has also made me think a lot.

Do we teach our children to follow the social expectations for a particular gender, even if we don't mean to? Should we encourage boys to wear pink and play with dolls? If we dress our young daughters in cute dresses are we reinforcing gender stereotypes? (Un)relaxeddad has done better justice to the question of engendering our children than I can, but it made me wonder ...

When adults say to children, 'You can't do/wear that because you're a girl (or a boy)' are they, besides reinforcing gender stereotypes, actually encouraging the child to grow up thinking that the opposite sex must be something to be feared, resented, or at the very least, viewed with disdain? By trying to raise a girl, even if we try to avoid stereotypes, are we inadvertently making a boy 'the Other'? And as we are all some sort of combination of both genders, will that not then foster such feelings with regard to themselves as well?

By expressing any negative view about the opposite sex, are we nurturing seeds of misogyny or misandry?

I wonder what effect my daughters hearing passionate outbursts from myself and other girlfriends, about how rotten 'all' men are, might have on their own opinions.

Thankfully, passionate outbursts in this vein (blush) are fairly rare, and balanced by lots of discussion with the girls about stereotypes and gender constructions. Eldest daughter says: 'Look Mum, I know already! I am girl. I can do/go/experience/be anything I want to. We are all unique. We are all special. We should always treat others as individuals ... blah! blah! blah!'

Oh well, perhaps I have overdone the gender thing a bit, but at least she is neither a misogynist nor a misandrist!

:o)

Thinking about it, I would say we're all humanists in this house.

(But I am definitely a feminist!)