My Daughter Is Sexist And I Don’t Know How It Happened
Posted by nowitsleah on March 10, 2009
My 3 year old daughter took one look at my new book with its colorful illustration of a dragon and dressed me down in a severe tone: “Mommy, you can’t read that. It’s a boy book!!” I felt an angry dragon rise up inside me and I quickly said, “No it’s not! It’s a mommy book!”
She considered this and asked, “Why do you want to read that book?” And I said, “Because it will teach me how to draw dragons and I really want to draw dragons.”
She dropped the subject. I tried to pursue her thinking. I really wanted to know how the idea of “boy books” had gotten implanted in her mind, but she was done on the subject and had moved on to the idea of putting glitter on dried leaves. When I pressed her on what IS a “boy book” she just mumbled, “oh, I don’t know, Mom.”
It got worse.
Yesterday, we went sledding. My daughter and her best friend (a boy) were carrying the toboggan together up the hill and Maddie called to me proudly, “Look! We’re really working hard, just like men!”
The other parents on the hill turned and looked at me in surprise, as though I spend my time counseling my daughter about the fine work ethic of men as compared to the lazy ways of women. I countered, “You’re working as a great team!” But I don’t think my rephrasing meant anything significant to her.
So, she’s in her first year of preschool. She spends 3 hours a day with 12 other kids her same age. I assume that’s where this arcane gender information is being passed around and chewed on. Of course I don’t mean from the teacher–the kids are probably telling each other how the world works and what everything means. But, I don’t really know if that’s how it happened. Maybe she made it up for herself based on all the books she’s been read, conversations she’s overheard, movie’s she’s watched, and behavior she’s observed.
Kids are notoriously black-n-white. You get more comfortable with ambiguity as you get older so I don’t consider this a problem right now. It just worries me. I hope she doesn’t think that she, by her very nature, is somehow less than boys. Honestly, though–maybe I unconsciously think I am less than men.
I’ve always gotten paid less than my male counterparts and stuff like that can affect your understanding of yourself and how you fit into the world. Whether you know it or not or want it to. Wouldn’t it be so Freudian if my daughter is unconsciously acting out my own latent sexism?
I need M&Ms.
RealGirl said
That’s super disturbing, but I don’t know if it’s time to freak out yet and send your daughter to a reeducation camp or something. Sometimes kids get crazy notions in their heads, that come out sounding like adult prejudice and bias, but are actually very much a make-believe, imagination driven thing. Example: When I was a toddler still I was in the grocery store with my dad one day and I pointed to a caucasian gentleman and said loudly, “Look daddy, that’s a white man.” Of course, people turned and stared. Later that week, I referenced a new neighbor as the “black man.” My parents were very concerned about what appeared to be a hyperdeveloped sense of race consciousness in their two and a half year-old. But a few days later when we were in the grocery store again I pointed to man and called him a “green man” and it suddenly occurred to my father that I was naming people by the color of their shirts not the color of their skins (which were more brown than black and more peach than white anyway). Kids are funny creatures who fixate on weird things. You’re a smart woman, you’re active and pedagogically aware, your daughter will grow up to be a lady lover not a woman hater.
ilovemykids said
Well she is just little my niece use to be like that to and now she older and she understands. And she is not sexist she is just little she will grow out of it dont worry