Gender Aint a Thang
In January of this year I read this article on the Yahoo! News webpage about a couple in the U.K. who kept their child's gender a secret for the first five years of his (he is a biological male) life. The boy's parents, Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper, let little Sasha wear whatever clothes he wanted (with the exception of skull t-shirts and cargo pants) and play with any toys he wanted. For the most part, Sasha dressed in whichever clothes he pleased, including once donning a shiny pink swimsuit, and even had a collection of dolls. In the article, Laxton says she wanted to "avoid all that stereotyping" that surrounds sex and gender and so they only revealed Sasha's sex at age five in order to send him to school.
A day in the life of Sasha
I wasn't sure what I thought about the article. On one hand, I applauded Sasha's parents for giving their child the freedom to express himself in whatever way he wanted. I thought the idea of letting him develop his own identity in relation to his sex was bold and virtuous. On the other hand, I cringed at the thought of the jokes and mockery which I imagined young Sasha would later be subject to. I disagreed with Laxton and Cooper's decision to take no part in this stage of Sasha's development. After all, isn't the role of the parent to mold and form their child, to guide him/her into maturity? I thought to myself: I would probably hate my parents for doing this to me.
Then I forgot about the article. Time passed, life went on, and I didn't think too much about the issue. Then, in mid September, Professor LaVaque-Manty decided to speak about a similar subject in lecture. We had been assigned to read "Throwing Like a Girl" and in lecture we discussed, among other things, the extent to which certain things we take to be purely natural are actually social constructs. Gender, for example, is not a natural occurrence; rather, it is constructed from biological differences between the male and female sexes. The expectation that women take care of the children, wear bright colors, and care about fashion while men partake in menial labor and drink beer are not biologically based. Instead, we as people assign these expectations to one another without any real reason besides that's how it has always been. After all, men could easily be wearing dresses had that been decided earlier.
Sasha in a different wardrobe
All of the sudden, the article I had read eight months earlier was back in my head, and I thought about what a great example Sasha was of someone who had been untouched by social constructs (or mostly anyway). Laxton and Cooper's decision to let their child live a gender neutral lifestyle didn't seem so crazy anymore. Sasha, by sometimes wearing shiny pink bathing suits and playing with dolls and at other times wearing 'boys' clothes' and playing with 'boys' toys', was living, breathing proof that so many of the things we take be be natural characteristics of the male and female gender are, in fact, social. In reality, who we are is a giant complication of natural and social forces, and which aspects of us pertain to natural forces and social forces may one day be better understood by studying children like Sasha.
Then again, we could just get his opinion on the issue now...
Images used:
http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/blogs/partner/470_2219341.2
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/22/article-2090169-11678F44000005DC-339_468x301.jpg
Mack,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! I liked your connection of Sasha and the reading "Throwing Like a Girl." You discussed how certain things we take to be purely natural are actually social constructs. Gender is a great example to use in this case. Gender is not a natural occurrence, it is constructed from the biological difference between the genders. Humans assign these gender expectations without reasons besides how these expectations have always been norms.
Sasha was a great example to use for this case. Her parents enabled her to be untouched by social constructs, letting her choose what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be.
Although this is a good example, I still think what Laxton and Cooper did was wrong. Yes, their child was able to live a gender neutral lifestyle but he was actually born one gender. They could have molded him into something he was not. But, this is just my opinion.
It's great that you were so instantaneously able to relate a concept discussed in class to an example you had heard in the past, it really shows a deeper understanding of the topic. This news article perfectly exemplifies the social origin of gender. From personal experience, I witnessed the way in which gender is a taught concept through the early preferences of my little brother. My sister and I would paint his nails, have him play barbies with us, we essentially treated him as our third sister. My siblings and I were simply too young to understand that there were distinct societal expectations of the male and female gender. Living with all other women, my brother acclimated quickly to the norms of the female gender, and even cried on his first day of preschool when my mother wouldn't let him wear a dress. Thankfully we didn't corrupt him permanently, he now very much acts and dresses like a male is expected to and is understandably disturbed that he ever acted otherwise. I think it shows though, just as in the case of Sasha, that gender is a very flexible concept.
ReplyDelete