This is just too bizarre to pass up. A Swedish couple has long opposed “the artificial construct of gender.” So, they have refused to disclose the gender of their child, who is being called Pop in the Swedish media. They are dressing Pop with dresses as well as non-dresses — and have given the child feminine and non-feminine hair styles alternatively. Only a few close relatives know the child’s true gender.
Pop’s mother insists “[w]e want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset. It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.” She insists that Pop is currently “genderless.”
The parents have announced that they are going to have another genderless child so Pop will be either a brother or a sister. It appears the parents were able to overcome their own artificial constructs of gender.
I must confess that I find this all to be unmitigated bunk. As the father of four children (three boys and a girl), I have been most struck by how hard-wired gender preferences are from playing with pretend weapons to playing dress up. For an earlier column on raising boys, click here. There is nothing, in my view, artificial in this construct. Rather, there is no reason not to relish the difference between boys and girls. Since Skinner, parents have been treating their kids like experiments in social engineering rather than allow kids to develop naturally.
To be sure, society creates many negative stereotypes for children, particularly girls. Anorexia nervosa is one such outgrowth of such socially reinforced images. However, there is no such thing as a genderless child absent a physical anomaly.
With the exception of watching It’s Pat, the child will have few movie options for Friday night.
For the full story, click here.
Lolo writes: GWLM,
I traced a line from pink sheets to gender stereotypes that you found illogical. I understand that buying sheets is on its own a benign act, but I challenge you to start from gender stereotypes and trace a line backwards and see where you end up. I believe that the root *is* in otherwise benign activities that we engage in thoughtlessly everyday. I believe one of those benign activities is buying color-coded sheets.
me: challenge me? to draw a line backward from stereotypes to the color of sheets one slept in before they knew the names of colors? why on earth would I do that? certainly not to please you. if sheets are so despicable, why not also add toys, clothing, books, and most importantly the expectation of parents and family to the brew of what makes kids girls/boys/both? all I know about gender is that somewhere around 3 all my girls suddenly went nuts for Barbie dolls. it was as if some weird gene was activated and barbie madness ruled the next 3 years.
lolo: As to your own personal story, it appears that you are an ideal parent.
me: why yes, I am a practically perfect parent which makes sense since I am a practically perfect human being.
Lolo,
Even when I generally agree with someone I dislike when due to supercilious smugness, generalizations are put forth and agendas detailed. Life is a lot messier than that.
I’ve been married almost 3 decades and have raised two daughters to adulthood. I’ve believed in feminism before there was a feminist movement. I do all the cooking, shopping and most cleaning in my house and always have. My brother, who’s been married Fifty years does the same. We were raised that way. Incidentally, the male part of that raising was a large, brawny man that most thought of as a man’s man, but he didn’t believe in any sexual stereotypes and taught that to his sons.
I don’t do these various tasks because I’m a feminist, but because as a partnership, my wife and I have developed a logical division of labor. Although she’s at least a good a cook as I am, if not better, she doesn’t enjoy cooking or shopping. She handles the money, pays the bills, does the laundry, gardening and household repairs. What made it work for my father, brother and myself was that we learned to appreciate women for their intelligence and wit, as much as for their looks. none of us would have ever been attracted to non-evolved submissive women, who were looking for Daddy.
Neither my wife, nor I wanted our daughters to feel constrained by their femininity, but they had to interact with other children their age and early on they wanted Barbie Dolls. I loathed this and despised Barbie, as did my wife but we allowed our kids to make many of their personal choices, as long as health and safety weren’t involved. They chose Barbie’s, dolls and feminine clothing. They also chose Lego’s and Hot Wheels. Many hours were spent sitting on the floor playing with Barbies with my girls. Perhaps that gave them a message too about gender rigidity.
Had I had a son, like Jim Byrne said, I would have advised him that wearing dresses is a bad idea, because I know what he’d been in store for at school or in the playground. However, if he wanted to wear it at home, or even to use makeup at home, that would be fine. Perhaps early on we would have had to discuss the implications of it in an age appropriate fashion. Had he been leaning towards cross-dressing or being gay that would have made no difference to me except for the worry of how society would treat him.
I write all this not as a rebuke but to caution you that although this society pushes many stereotypes on us, for various nefarious reasons, many of these stereotypes, especially when it comes to gender are breaking down and I don’t believe they’ll comer any faster by using our children as experiments in progress to validate our own beliefs.
Jim,
I congratulate you on your cooking, vacuuming, folding, and cleaning. You are indeed an exception to the rule.
I will say that I disagree very strongly with your suggestion that you find nothing wrong with a parent telling their child “little boys don’t wear dresses.” This makes “vive la différence” ring hollow, and it prevents the child from determining for himself how he wishes to express himself. If he wants to wear a dress, let him wear a dress. If it causes problems at school or if he gets made fun of, he’ll either cave and start conforming to the insecurities of others or he’ll stay strong and be a happy non-conformist. You might think the former option (caving and conforming) will lead to a more well-adjusted person. I can assure that it does not. I know enough transgender people to feel confident in saying that the longer you wait in allowing your inner self to bloom, the longer you delay your own mental health. The more we stifle such non-conformity, the unhealthier our children become.
GWLM,
I traced a line from pink sheets to gender stereotypes that you found illogical. I understand that buying sheets is on its own a benign act, but I challenge you to start from gender stereotypes and trace a line backwards and see where you end up. I believe that the root *is* in otherwise benign activities that we engage in thoughtlessly everyday. I believe one of those benign activities is buying color-coded sheets.
As to your own personal story, it appears that you are an ideal parent. You say: “It wouldn’t bother me a bit if she did want to work on cars or if she was butch in any way. my job as a parent is to offer choices and give her every advantage I can and allow her to develop into the woman that she decides to become.” These are wonderful words. My quibble is not with you — my quibble is with the vast majority of other parents who do not share your open-mindedness to allow their children to make their own choices.
Sorry I missed the irony!
Jill writes: This statement: “what’s the point of having kids if you can’t live through them?” to me, is not what having children is about at all. I’ve seen too many kids break on the wall of parental disappointment, not because they weren’t intelligent, kind, talented and wonderful people, but because their parents wanted them to be something they were not. Ususally, this invovlved not being what the parent had always hoped to be– whether a great athlete, academic or working in a certain type of career.
This to me, shows poor emotional boundaries. Parents are who they are and children are who they are. Of course parents and children may be similar, but they are each unique people. I think people should live their own dreams. It’s a problem when people live vicariously through others, be that a spouse, a celebrity they don’t know personally, or their children. If you mean that parents should enjoy their children, I couldn’t agree more. If you mean the boundary violation type of living through another person instead of living your own life, I think that’s a real problem.
me: lighten up Jill. I was being ironic.
GWL,
This statement: “what’s the point of having kids if you can’t live through them?” to me, is not what having children is about at all. I’ve seen too many kids break on the wall of parental disappointment, not because they weren’t intelligent, kind, talented and wonderful people, but because their parents wanted them to be something they were not. Ususally, this invovlved not being what the parent had always hoped to be– whether a great athlete, academic or working in a certain type of career.
This to me, shows poor emotional boundaries. Parents are who they are and children are who they are. Of course parents and children may be similar, but they are each unique people. I think people should live their own dreams. It’s a problem when people live vicariously through others, be that a spouse, a celebrity they don’t know personally, or their children. If you mean that parents should enjoy their children, I couldn’t agree more. If you mean the boundary violation type of living through another person instead of living your own life, I think that’s a real problem.
Jill writes: I wish parents would not use their children to make points that they should be making themselves. Many people seem to live through their children, asking them to carry the burdens of their own dreams and desires. It would be nice to see the parents deciding they were no longer going to buy into gender norms and start changing their own looks to what they wanted at a given time. This would give their children a role model of people following their own heart.
me: what’s the point of having kids if you can’t live through them? where i come from the 11th commandment is that you will do better by your kids than your parents did by you. kids find role models everywhere, not just at the breakfast table. I’d hate to be judged by history for stuff I said or did when i was barely conscious. this argument is as weak as the one that states professional athletes are role models because they can hit or run or something and are paid like a gazillion dollars a year for it. athletes are entertainers in the same way actors are.
besides, we should give our kids just enough trauma so that when they go into therapy they have something interesting to talk about.
if you think I should have my kids post here to make this point instead of me just ask. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. I think you might be surprised at how different we are and yet so very much alike.
lolo writes: But I also think many of you give short shrift to the destructive nature of gender roles in society. I myself recoil when I see new parents buying blue for their expected boys and pink for their expected girls. Just because some boys seem to gravitate towards playing with guns and some girls like to play with dolls doesn’t mean we should restructure society such that we practically mandate that choice. While some believe these gender “preferences” to be rather benign, when our society then takes these and goes the further normative step of suggesting that those preferences are “right,” we go down a very bad path: a path where men are the strong and heterosexual and fix cars and grill hamburgers and do tough business, and where women are dainty and stupid and bake cakes and are discouraged from working and earn less when they do work. These very persistent and pervasive stereotypes are the direct result of our society’s obsession with gender roles. And our encouragement (tacit and
explicit) of gender-based preferences is the root of it all. It’s not a difficult line to draw. It all starts with buying blue sheets and pink sheets…
me: yes, it all starts with sheets. and t-shirts and one-sies and rompers. and don’t forget the bunnies and duckies for girls and trains and trucks for boys and it all ends where? in the bars where women hitch up their skirts to get that tough pool shot and men stare at their legs?
I think you’ve taken a fair point to a rather illogical extreme. babies arrive with intact personalities and no amount of color inculcation will change that. for instance, when my oldest was born I was determined not to dress her in pink. trouble was she had no hair until she was nearly two. people often told me that I had such a pretty little boy and by that time I dressed her from head to toe in pink (avoiding those nasty elastic headbands favored by some parents) and they still thought she was a boy. once the hair came in, in ringlets she was still mistaken for a boy until it got pretty long. I don’t think that being mistaken for a boy when she was a toddler harmed her in any way. neither did being dressed in pink.
I don’t think that my dressing her in pink in those years made her dainty or stupid or suggested that she might be better at cleaning her apartment because she has tits.
she is a 4th generation feminist and still likes pink. and floral prints and toile. she also likes blue and purple and so what if she likes Betsey Johnson. She has brains and guts and may not want to tune up cars but none of that is a result of wearing pink t-shirts or hawaiian print leggings when she was a toddler. It wouldn’t bother me a bit if she did want to work on cars or if she was butch in any way. my job as a parent is to offer choices and give her every advantage I can and allow her to develop into the woman that she decides to become.
Jill,
Please don’t think that I’m saying men must dress the way society wants them to, or they should be considered less of a man. -I am not. (The same would apply to women.)
I think children are a different story. Children need guidance and direction. In fact, they seem to crave it. I don’t see anything wrong with a parent telling their child; “little boys don’t wear dresses”. -I know that all blocks don’t fit perfectly into the holes (no pun intended), but that shouldn’t make us avoid a societal standard. We must be willing to recognize, and more importantly, accept such deviations in behavior.
Sexuality and gender association is determined early in life, and it has nothing to do with one’s god-given whistles and bells. I think parentage and society can have an effect on that, but only slightly. We will all be who we are…even if society doesn’t accept it. -The trick is to get society to accept it.
In Samoa, they have the Fa’afafine. The National Geographic Channel’s “Taboo” series on this topic was quite interesting.
Lolo,
Sorry to assume your gender! DUH!!!
Jim,
If you really want difference then every woman dressing a certain way and every man dressing another certain way isn’t it. Things would be much more colorful if people dressed according to their own desires, not in sex defined uniforms.
Lolo,
I cook. I vacuum the floors. I fold the laundry. I even clean the bathroom. Who would have known that I was so gender-enlightened? :>)
My reply to Jill was based on her comment; That the parents start changing their own looks to what they wanted at a given time.
A child seeing their father vacuuming the floor is a good way to make that role gender neutral. Him doing so, while dressed up as a woman….not so much.
Making everything “gray” is more like saying nothing at all, than it is, what I consider to be, the actions of a “role model”.
–If we made all food taste like chicken; it would make all food equal to our palate. In doing so, we ruined the steak dinner.
vive la différence –Even when the “différence” is not what you would expect.
Jim,
Human beings come in 5 sexes not two. The fact that we think we know what is male and female clothing is a function of current social norms, not any given underlying reality. Remeber that people used to freak out at male hippies for wearing long hair and female’s who wore their hair short. Think also of kilts, togas etc. Check out a costumes of the world and through history. I think a child would be happy to come home to any strong, loving, secure parent who truly cared about their wellbeing. Every kid has to deal with something that’s different about their family from another family–love is what gets one through this, not conformity.
Lolo makes excellent points in her anaylsis and I second them all!
Jim,
Implicit in your response to Jill is your own acceptance of binary gender norms — the idea that everything is either male or female. What does it mean to be dressed “as a woman”? Perhaps you mean wearing a dress and wearing makeup and earrings, or something like that. I would challenge this binary as unduly narrow. Jill’s idea of not buying into gender norms doesn’t have to mean the father wears a dress and high heels. It could simply mean that he vacuums around the house or folds the laundry. That itself is challenging gender norms, in my view. It’s a little pathetic that such a simple thing could be considered a challenge to gender norms, but that’s the way our heteronormative society operates. Sad but true.
Jill said; “It would be nice to see the parents deciding they were no longer going to buy into gender norms and start changing their own looks to what they wanted at a given time. This would give their children a role model of people following their own heart.”
I’m not sure how I would have felt, as a child coming home from school to see my father dressed as a woman. While I would agree that people, who are honest with themselves, make excellent role models; I’m not sure such confused/variation would be a the attributes of a good role model.
Role Model: A person who serves as a model in a particular behavioral or social role for another person to emulate.
Deborah,
That was a very thoughtful post. I see that Lolo also has reserations about our gender norms, as do I. If we look cross-culturally and trans-historically, we see that other cultures have defined male and female in very different ways from our own, in some cases, as the opposite from what we consider “normal”. This casts serious doubts on the intrinsic validity of our own social norms.
I wish parents would not use their children to make points that they should be making themselves. Many people seem to live through their children, asking them to carry the burdens of their own dreams and desires. It would be nice to see the parents deciding they were no longer going to buy into gender norms and start changing their own looks to what they wanted at a given time. This would give their children a role model of people following their own heart.
David Reimer is rolling in his grave.
http://www.intersexualite.org/David.html
I thought the doll for boys was called GI Joe?
Back to the topic, I would have thought that the story of David Reimer would be enough to discourage anything like this. This is where Dr John Money decided that he could convince a genetic boy, who had lost his penis at 8 months old through a botched circumcision that he was actually a girl, with appropriate surgery and hormone treatments. Money reported that the procedure was 100% successful, but in the real world, ‘Brenda’ would tear off dresses, steal his brother’s masculine toys, and generally act like any other little boy. When he was 14, he learned the truth, and decided to go through reassignment surgery again, back to the male he was born with. Despite this, he had an unhappy life before committing suicide at 38.
I hope little Pop doesn’t suffer such serious psychological damage, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
You question my families right to raise our child the way that you want to. I will have you know that we pay for medical bills for men to become women. You want to try? Ya. we take the piping off and make a nice oval shaped contraption. I am told that we make the best woman for the man you could ever want, ya. Want to come and see for yourself?
If you want, we can make a man out of you women. We have extra parts laying around, sometime. Ya know one that needs one? They attach on permanently. We are experimenting with snaps but you know the country gets so cold that some complain. You want to try some with the snaps? So right now, we make them permanent.
You need some changes?
Albrechtsson Johansson, MD
I agree with the other commenters that the parents’ behavior here has gone overboard. Indeed, I think their actions effect the result they are attempting to avoid: molding their child into a particular gender construct.
But I also think many of you give short shrift to the destructive nature of gender roles in society. I myself recoil when I see new parents buying blue for their expected boys and pink for their expected girls. Just because some boys seem to gravitate towards playing with guns and some girls like to play with dolls doesn’t mean we should restructure society such that we practically mandate that choice. While some believe these gender “preferences” to be rather benign, when our society then takes these and goes the further normative step of suggesting that those preferences are “right,” we go down a very bad path: a path where men are the strong and heterosexual and fix cars and grill hamburgers and do tough business, and where women are dainty and stupid and bake cakes and are discouraged from working and earn less when they do work. These very persistent and pervasive stereotypes are the direct result of our society’s obsession with gender roles. And our encouragement (tacit and explicit) of gender-based preferences is the root of it all. It’s not a difficult line to draw. It all starts with buying blue sheets and pink sheets…
Economic Experiments That You Can Perform At Home On Your Children