Rejecting gender stereotypes

I am a feminist. No, I don't burn bras and I don't hate men. Feminism has become sort of a dirty word, conjuring up images of brawny women who don't shave their armpits. Nothing could be further from the truth. What feminism is, is simply the belief that men and women should be treated equally (note: equal doesn't mean the same). This is a belief I've held for a long time, since I wrote my thesis on perspectives on equality for women way back in NUS, and I touched on my views briefly in this post.

I feel the need to write about this because it has great bearing on the way I bring up my kids. Don't get me wrong - I do recognise that there are inherent differences between men and women. Despite my determination to raise my kids as gender-neutral as possible, Lesley-Anne is as delicate and fastidious as the next girl and Andre naturally gravitates towards toy cars and soldiers. Nevertheless, gender differences tend to be magnified, so that men and women are often compared to as coming from different planets. In reality, men and women have more similarities than differences, as a human race.

An MCP friend of mine once argued, "It's like an apple and a pear! Men and women are not the same!" My retort was that an apple and a pear are both fruit - they have more in common than they are different.

The problem is that society plays up gender differences (even imagined ones) from the cradle. At the hospital, relatives coo over the new male baby "oh, he's so handsome!" and female infant "oh, she's so pretty!" when in reality, the only way they can tell the gender of that wrinkled bundle is from the colour of the swaddling blanket.

From a very young age, children understand the way they are expected to act in relation to their gender. When boys get into scrapes, they're often told, "Don't cry, you're a boy. Don't be a sissy." Girls hear "Why are you so dirty and untidy? You should be more ladylike." These gender stereotypes are reinforced if their parents have traditional roles, ie dad goes out to work, mum stays home to cook, clean and look after kids.

Once again, there is nothing wrong with these roles, but what I'm saying is that contrary to popular belief, many gender traits not inborn - they are learned. From examining the world around them, kids form their worldview and believe that this is the natural order of the universe. Which may not be a problem if the kids are able to accept these stereotypes in their own lives but the minute they encounter something contrary to what they have internalised, the inevitable angst will set it.

A boy who grows up thinking he should be tough and like tough guy stuff like sports is more likely to hide or smother his passion for music and theatre, for instance, or risk facing the wrath of his parents and ridicule of his peers. A girl who has Wall Street ambitions may feel they are unrealistic as her sole purpose in life as a woman is to be a good wife and mother.

In both scenarios, you will have unhappy children who are more likely to grow up to be unfulfilled adults because they have conformed to societal norms against their hearts' callings. Worst case, they will feel that there is something inherently wrong with them because they are not able to embrace their roles like other "normal" people.

Gender stereotypes have real consequences. Women have struggled with issues of a glass ceiling, menial labour and unequal pay for decades. Men have not had it easy either, mostly with having to live up to expectations of what constitutes being a "man". Like this phrase, "but if I let my son play with dolls, he will grow up gay!" My personal view is that if that's his inclination, forbidding him to play with dolls will not prevent it from coming true. All you'll end up with is one in the closet or worse, one that pretends to be otherwise and lives a lie as an unsatisfactory husband and father (there are many of these out there). If he doesn't have the inclination in the first place, playing with 10 Barbies will not "turn" him. What is more likely to be true is that if you fill your son with all that macho BS, he'll probably grow up to be a jerk.

Whether you have a son or a daughter, both will benefit from a loving family that teaches responsibility, honesty, independence and respect for others. These cut across gender issues. As far as possible, I try to instil in my kids that they can be anything they want to be (unless like in the Baby Blues comic, they want to be giant carnivorous lizards) - they should not be hampered by myopic gender roles narrowly defined by society. In this day and age, I still hear comments like, "it's not so important for her to be smart, she's a girl." Hang on a minute as I throw this Barbie doll at you.

It's difficult because we're still living in the backdrop of an Asian patriarchal society, although mindsets are slowly changing. So even though I try to imbibe gender equality in my kids, it's an uphill battle. Last year, Andre told me one of the girls in his class played soccer with him and a group of boys. Instead of therefore acknowledging that girls can play soccer too, as I'd hoped, he said, "she's not really a girl." (It was meant to be a compliment.) We may laugh but when you think about it, we adults are guilty of this as well. If we see someone not behaving according to our ideas of what men and women should do, do we consider the possibility that our perception might be wrong or do we dismiss that person as perhaps possessing some "faulty" biological wiring?

It's a philosophy worth fighting for and I will continue to treat both my son and my daughter equally. They have the right to equal opportunities to pursue their dreams - Andre shouldn't get priority over Lesley-Anne just by the mere fact that he's a boy... nor vice versa. And that's what being a feminist means.