Monday, January 23, 2012

Hiss at Gender Norms Week

Since creating holidays rocks!
Every day of Hiss at Gender Norms Week, I will be posting something hiss-able, something that puts people in their place based on their gender.
So, today?
I will deal with the issue of gender roles... in babies.
You might think- hey, they're babies. They can't talk, or anything. Or, really, in any way comply to gender norms. Right? Wrong.
This is literally all baby store places are to me. Maybe some yellow in the middle, but, for the most part, this. Yeah, sure. Let's dress all the girls in pink and the boys in blue, because it's what society says they're supposed to like.
But, people? They're babies. They don't really prefer one over the other, okay? And if they did, it wouldn't be consistently boys=blue, girls=pink.
You're trying to spread gender conformity to the babies before they can even talk! Or walk!
And you know what? This is gender norms!
So...
Because we're even contaminating the freaking babies! God.
And, for the record? The colors being associated with a certain gender in the first place is a problem. My favorite color is blue. I know a guy whose favorite color is pink. So, bang.
Babies don't have favorite colors. But that doesn't mean you should stick them in a pink onesie just because they're a girl, or in a blue one because they're a boy. 

3 comments:

  1. Well, though I understand what you're saying, baby dress codes can be helpful. After all, with a lot of babies, it's hard to tell if they're boys or girls. (Heck, once when I was 2, I was wearing a FRILLY PINK DRESS and some woman thought I was a boy. Sure, there's nothing wrong with a baby boy wearing a frilly pink dress, but wouldn't it kind of throw your it's-a-boy-assumption just a little?) So it helps, because it's never fun to tell someone "He's so cute!" and have them say "It's a girl, actually..."
    Of course, while helpfully dressing your babies is okay, it's not okay to impose ONLY blue on boys, ONLY pink on girls, and ZERO colors inbetween. It's also irritating that by dressing our children as such, we are contributing to a larger stereotype and brainwashing our babies.

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    1. But see, I think part of the issue is that colors are gendered. Like, what the heck? Pink shouldn't equal girl, blue shouldn't equal boy. I feel like people can get over it if someone messes up their baby's gender. Babies just look like weird, genderless blobs, anyway.
      The fact that the colors matter this much in our identification of gender is an issue here, I think.

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    2. Yeah, it's annoying because the simple practice has turned into a big stereotype and such. I think most people just dress their babies accordingly because now it's a pretty well-known custom and so it works. And those few who are all "My baby's a girl so she needs a bunch of pink stuff!" and all.

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