oh rly, media

[maevele]

Gender Non-Conformity is a Drag » Sociological Images


You want to fucking start your gender policing with a three year old? or rather, criticising parents for not gender policing their kid? she wants to be john, from peter pan. she is three. eat shit. It is to the child's wishes, and it would be better to you that the jolie-pitts force the child into a restricted gender role?

TO HELL WITH GENDERING CHILDREN AT ALL. I mean, really, let a kid be whoever the fuck they are, or you are a giant asshole.

ASDFGHJKLKJHGHJKFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Comments

[nmdrkangl.livejournal.com]

Now, now... tell us how you really feel.

[naomikritzer]

I routinely read tabloids while waiting in line at the grocery store and read that article (I assume it's the same one) on Friday and oh my GOD it infuriated me.

On one hand, I tried to consider the source; really, it's a supermarket tabloid, so what did I expect? And I tried to focus on the fact that they had to go to Focus on the Family to find a "therapist" (those scare quotes there would be deliberate) to provide the viewpoint that Angelina and Brad should force their three-year-old into dresses and sparkly shoes to make her gender-conform.

But oh my GOD, it grossed me out. Especially since the headline tried to imply that Brad and Angelina were forcing masculinity on their daughter, rather than respecting their kid's natural inclinations. (Part of why I picked it up in the first place was the wait, REALLY? double take there, because while movie stars are a mixed parenting bag, my general vague impression of Brangelina is that they want to let their kids be whoever they are.)

The way tabloids cover celebrity kids is kind of gross generally. (I saw an article a few weeks ago bitching about the fact that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's daughter has this favorite pair of cowgirl boots that she wears absolutely everywhere and how there's something wrong with the fact that Katie doesn't make her switch them out occasionally. Because GOD KNOWS no celebrity child should be permitted any hint of normal behavior, like picking some favored clothing item they wear everywhere for weeks on end!) But this one really went above and beyond for repugnant and offensive.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

No. They want to start their gender policing at birth.

I still remember the guy at the farmer's market who was so...stymied by the fact that my girls were wearing blue that day. You could tell he wanted to be angry at me for deceiving him but couldn't figure out why I'd do such a ridiculous thing in the first place.

[nmdrkangl.livejournal.com]

that I find really amusing, since back before the 50's blue used to be the color for little girls and pink was for little boys.

stupid society. can't keep it's light spectrum in strictly controlled gender roles.

[ethora.livejournal.com]

It's frustrating, it's useless, and it's stupid how people place stock in gender roles these days. I got all sorts of BS, especially in the deep south, when I gave my four year old son a baby doll for Xmas. It's what he asked Santa for! Of course, I also got grief for raising him non-theist, among other things. And come to think of it, pretty much all of who I am as a human is hated by other humans somewhere on the planet. *Sigh*

Anyway, I have a completely unrelated question to ask you. I really want to see Rent, and am wondering if it's best to watch the movie or the film of the Broadway show first. I know that you're a huge fan, so I figured you'd have an opinion on this. Thanks!

[maevele.livejournal.com]

I am way more familiar with the movie than the broadway film, which I have seen once, and loved like a motherfuck. Umm. hardcore rentheads say the play is better, and the movie wrecked it etc. The broadway is all song, no spoken parts, has a couple songs the movie doesn't.

I dunno. i saw the movie first, like 80 times, and loved it, and also loved the play. Maybe see the movie first, so you aren't compaing it to the bway version? see the,m both eventually though. The movie is slightly more straightforward, I guess.

[ethora.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've watched some clips from the movie and it looks great! I was just wondering if it would be blasphemous to watch it before the play, you know?

I can't wait until they make a movie of Wicked! Or at least a DVD of the show.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

What the hell? I went as Peter Pan for at least three Halloweens (Mom got really good at making that costume) and nobody said shit. Maybe because I still had long hair? Or because the stage musical is written for a woman, so there's been a female Peter Pan ever since Mary Martin?

But still. I was playing a boy character (with a plastic dagger, which I know would be verboten these days) and nobody cared. Could it possibly be that, twenty-odd years ago, people cared less because they were less aware? Or maybe it really was the long hair. I don't know.

[naomikritzer]

In the 1970s and 1980s you could just be a "tomboy" and that was fine, because everyone know that tomboys outgrow their tomboyish ways and become women (and srsly, if you pick up some vintage middle-grade lit, you'll find many MANY books where there's a tomboyish girl who does all the cool adventurous stuff with the boys for most of the book, and then in the final chapter, she puts away childish things and does her hair and goes off to learn to be A Lady. You see that scene in Caddie Woodlawn, but it's also in many far-less-known books -- I remember being really fond of the Katie John books, and very irritated that she caved and became girly at the end. And there are many many others.)

Girls don't have to grow up and go femme anymore. They have other options. I think that fuels the sense that the gender-policing has to start at birth. Not, mind you, that it is a BAD THING that girls can grow up to be butch lesbians if they want, I'm just saying, I think the gender-policing DOES start earlier now and I think it's specifically a backlash against the fact that women can defy a lot of these gender-specific norms and not be shunned by society. If you can be a tomboy and STAY a tomboy, then clearly little girls cannot allowed to be tomboys, period, at least in the minds of the assholes cited in that article.

(Also, you might have been dressing up as Peter Pan at Halloween, but if you had long hair you were still adequately girly, even if you lived in blue jeans. Halloween is special; you can break all sorts of rules at Halloween, which is part of why the fundies hate the holiday so much, IMO.)

[leeoakfire.livejournal.com]

When I Was A Boy
by the wonderful Dar Williams

I won't forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy; I'm glad he didn't check.
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck.
And I remember that night
When I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe, someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home.
When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,
Climbed what I could climb upon
And I don't know how I survived,
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too.

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.
My neighbor come outside to say, "Get your shirt,"
I said "No way, it's the last time I'm not breaking any law."
And now I'm in a clothing store, and the sign says less is more
More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat

When I was a boy, see that picture? That was me
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees
And I know things have gotta change,
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in, they've got implants to remove
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too

And like the woods where I would creep, it's a secret I can keep
Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guard
I've had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds its way
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard.
And I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived
And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me, and I was just like you