Eleanor does Gender Studies

I should probably write some kind of apology for the hiatus here, with assurances that I won't do it again.
But that's boring*, so let's just move along.

There are days when everything goes neatly into the box I expected it would, and days when I'm completely foiled in my attempts to educate.
There are also days when a simple idea becomes something so monumental that I want to run about screaming with excitement** but I can't because we're too busy doing whatever it is.

Then there are days where, without any prompting from me, one of the girls will pick up an idea, or ask a question, and suddenly we're studying a completely different topic to the one I'd intended.

And then there's Eleanor's Week of Gender Studies.

It started innocuously enough: I'd set Ellie the task of imagining a person from a world completely unlike ours, and then considering what that person would think of some simple items from our home***.

So she wrote out a description of her person:

"They are from Neptune.
 They are half fairy and half alien.
 They are both male and female.
They are very small and their hair is green tentacles".

Ok.

So.

I had a few questions about this.


First I asked her what she meant by both male and female: did she mean the people on Neptune could be male or female, or something else?
No: she meant that her person was both male and female, like all the other people on Neptune.
Right.
Then did she mean that they were emotionally or mentally genderfluid****, or was this a biological trait.
Biological: people from Neptune have both boy parts and girl parts.
O......kay.

There followed a long conversation during which I mentioned that there were people just like that on Earth, offered the term intersex as being more appropriate than "both male and female", discussed the varying degrees by which a person could be male or female or otherwise, touched upon the differences between sex and gender, mentioned the us of ze as an alternative to he or she*****, confirmed that yes "they" would be fine for her Neptunian if the Neptunians preferred that, asked how said Neptunians would know the difference between one person or several and somewhere along the lines realised that I was having this entire conversation with a six year old.

Then she went back to her desk****** and wrote about the ways in which a tentacle headed, six inch high, intersex person from Neptune would view some simple household objects.
It turned out neither sex nor gender really had much impact.

And then we got on with our day.

That was on the Tuesday.
Wednesday passed with nothing unusual bar a few questions as to why people thought some things were for girls and others for boys..
On the Thursday we set off to ballet class.*******

All proceeded as usual until it was time to get changed for Phoebe's class, when, seemingly out of nowhere Eleanor suddenly asked: "Mummy, why do we have different changing rooms for men and women?"
 This being a question which has occasionally bothered me, I found it a little different to answer.
Eventually I settled for explaining that some people weren't happy about dressing or undressing in front of people who might be attracted to them, or to whom they might be attracted, and that sometimes they might have to worry about people looking at them in a way that made them uncomfortable.
I declined, at this time, to discuss rape, in a public changing room, with a six-year-old, however pretty much everything that she said next applied pretty well in that case too.

In a voice clearly designed to carry into every corner of the building, Eleanor declared that this, was silly.
She further added that it "wouldn't even work, because boys can be in love with boys and girls can be in love with girls, and anyone can be attracted********* to anyone and if they're that worried why don't we just have cubicles?"
And some more that I can't quite recall at present.
I think she may have punched the air a few times.

So I agreed that, yes, it was quite silly when she put it like that, and she was preaching to the choir here anyway, and preaching to the choir was just an expression that meant I already agreed with her, and yes, people did have stupid ideas but could she perhaps lower her voice just a bit because now she seemed to be making that lady over there a little uncomfortable with all the shouting?

And then she muttered something about people needing to be uncomfortable if the world was stupid and we went off and waited for their teacher to arrive.


I rather thought that would be it for that day.

During Phoebe's class the parents tend to congregate outside, letting the children learn on their own, but staying within reach in case we're needed.
Naturally this leads to conversation.
One of the mothers (and it is all mothers and grandmothers out there, except for Eleanor) noticed that Ellie was reading Doll Bones by Holly Black and asked if she enjoyed horror stories.
 From here we began discussing our own literary preferences and it transpired that everyone there enjoyed horror, James Herbert being the most popular author, while no-one had any interest in the sex-and-shopping or romance novels generally marketed towards women.
So we talked about the foolishness of stereotyping for a bit, before it was time to go back in and collect our various offspring.

As we walked through the door I heard one mother observe to another that, yes, her daughter loved ballet too, "I think it's something girls just naturally gravitate to".
At this point I became both incredibly glad and rather sorry that I'd asked Eleanor to lower her voice earlier, as she grabbed my sleeve and whispered "Do you think she listened to anything she was just saying?"

And then we went and did a maths activity involving buried treasure.

On Friday we went to the library, where Eleanor got out a number of books about a girl's adventures in fairyland.

Because that's fine too.











*And, honestly, I will do it again.

**Or blog about it.

***For our archaeology project: when you think about it, this is often what an archaeologist is like when they first approach a site.

****Yes. I explained the concept of genderfluidity to a six-year-old.

***** "But some people don't like that either darling, so it's better to ask, if you don't think it would be impolite to do so".

******It's an antique school desk with an inkwell and a place for a pen and I love it.

*******Our Thursday: I get up and drag anyone who isn't up out of bed.
After two bus journeys, (during which we read, to various values of the word read) we grab lunch somewhere and either shop or visit a soft play centre where I will spend seventy five percent of my time looking for one daughter on behalf of the other.
Following this we have Phoebe's ballet class, then a gap where they get changed then sit with a friend and do some activity I've cobbled together (usually sneaky maths).
Then Eleanor has her class while Phoebe and I sit in a coffee shop with friends and re-enact Sex in the City******** with two adults and two three year olds, then we take Eleanor to Rainbows, then there's dinner, then games night and then I fall over.

********I have never seen Sex in the City.
But I have seen adverts.

********* Although she actually said attractled, instead of attracted.
She also mispronounced cubicle.

Pink* Will Eat Your Brain.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the colour pink.
As hues go, it is no more offensive than turquoise, oxblood, or chartreuse.
The politics of pink, however, are another matter.

These days if you have a young*** girl in your family, you will find that your house quickly becomes covered in pink.
This is not because the colour pink is somehow magnetically attracted to the female gender****, nor indeed are girls irresistibly drawn to the colour pink.
It is, quite simply, because just about every ruddy thing that is marketed to girls is, quite emphatically, pink.
 Now I'm sure there are girls out there who really do love pink, who would love pink even if they were told that pink was really not a girls' colour, who would fight for pink even though everything marketed at girls was green*****.
 However most girls don't really have the opportunity to decide whether they like pink or not: they are inundated with pink from the moment they are born.
 Very quickly, they learn to associate pink with for me and, conversely not pink, that's any colour that isn't pink, or perhaps a pinkish shade of purple, with not for me.
Most early learning toys come in two versions: one in bright colours, normally all the primary colours, but occasionally blue with decoration, buttons etc in various contrasting colours, and one in pink.
The message is clear: the pink one is for girls, all the other colours are for boys.
 Somehow, despite encompassing just over half of all children, "girl" is considered a special interest group: we have toys for children, and then we have toys for girls.

As girls grow older pink continues to overwhelm them, but now it also begins to direct their choices: having been trained to recognise pink as for me, girls are now directed towards certain types of toys, and away from others, by their relative pinknesses.
 Baby dolls, fashion dolls, dolls houses and princess or nurturer role-play and dressing up?
Pink
Pretty craft and design packs******.
Pink.
Horse-riding, ballet dancing or ice-skating?
Pink.
Absolutely anything domestic or containing the word princess?
My gods it's pink.
Yes, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball, however the garage, fire-station, race track and outer space seem to be off limits.
Sorry about that.
 Anything that isn't pink, such as construction kits, race cars, train sets, superheroes, dinosaurs, serious art supplies, spaceships, board games that aren't about fashion or dating, bats, balls, yo-yos, stunt kites, chemistry sets and magic tricks, is, somehow, not for girls.
 Now of course there are girls who will fight this stereotyping, and there are certainly parents******* who will make a point of buying the non-pink items, and who will steer their offspring towards the dinosaurs, or spaceships, or maybe dinosaurs in spaceships, but the social conditioning of pink is hard to overcome.
With the knowledge that pink is for girls, and the correlating information that non-pink is not for girls, comes the understanding that to step outside of these boundaries, to choose the wrong item, is to put yourself beyond the pale: to defy the laws of the tribe is to exile yourself from the tribe.
The result is that, eventually, even if pink were entirely removed from the world of toys, girls already trained by past exposure to all that pink, would still gravitate toward the stereotypically girly toys, because those are all they expect to play with.
 Likewise boys will avoid anything that falls within that girly stereotype, on the grounds that it is not for them.

As girls grow older pink becomes less predominant, not because their options are opening up -if anything they become even more constrained- but because, their training complete, they can now recognise toys and other items that are for them without the assistance of the colour pink.
 So pink becomes less dominant, a fashion doll's packaging, for example, will be blue and pink or, often, a lingeriesque black and pink, instead of the solid pink of their earlier toys.
 Eventually there is no need for pink at all: the girls', or rather the young women's interests having been firmly directed down the road of shoes, handbags, and hair products.

This may seem ridiculous, and it is true that few young women will end up completely conforming to stereotype, however I find it interesting that Woman's Hour , (on a programme about pink) interviewed a young woman who was colour blind.
 Her interests, even her taste in clothes, were very different to those of her friends, something she attributed to the fact that she could not see the colour pink, and therefore had grown up without the dubious benefit of a signpost to tell her which route she was supposed to choose through life.********

The world of pink, and the world of non-pink are very different places.




 All of which is pretty awful, all by itself

However, long before a girl has learned to like pink, before she has any say in the toys and clothes she receives, whatsoever, pink may already be making its mark upon her brain.

As I mentioned earlier, most early learning toys these days come in two versions: normal (for boys), and pink (for girls).
 The boys' versions are brightly coloured, with plenty of contrast between the various shapes, buttons, numbers and so on.
The girls' versions are, by and large, pink.
 This means that while a boy playing with the toy intended for him will start to develop an understanding of those shapes, numbers, and colours without really trying, a girl playing with that same toy in the "girls' " version will not.
 Indeed, as the mass of pink or lilac buttons blurs together, a girl who tries to take an interest in shapes and numbers (colours being notably absent from her toy) will find it quite difficult.
 The lesson to girls, right from infancy, is: maths is hard.

Deterred from an interest in basic maths by its difficulty, and by the relative ease of other, less complex, activities, girls are moved away from mathematics, science and engineering, before they even know what those words mean.

Pink will eat your brain.


 Of course girls can fight against the tide of pink, they can develop their own interests, and even those who truly, naturally incline towards pink, are not condemned to a life of brainless fashion-following.
Girls who like pink are every bit as capable of becoming renowned historians, architects, or cognitive scientists, as any other girls.
Nature can defeat nurture.
 The pink doesn't make it any easier though.













*Not Pink the singer, pink the colour, Pink is actually pretty cool.
Yes, I just put an asterisk into the title.
I'm not proud of this**.

**Maybe a teeny bit.

***Where young means somewhere between a foetus and old-enough-to-draw-a-pension

****Technically, only words have gender.
People have sex.
There is nothing wrong with sex.
The word gender, however, is used to denote, not merely the sex with which a person is born, but also that to which the subscribe whether it is that assigned by birth or not.
So it's a nice, egalitarian word, even if it is horribly inaccurate.

*****I'm sure of this because I know more than one boy who likes pink.
Pink is not marketed to boys.
Quite the reverse in fact.

******Often low in creativity and high in spangles and words like princess.

******* Hi there!

******** This is clearly anecdata, but I do find it rather telling.

Brave

We went to see Brave a while ago.
 Since then Eleanor has been obsessed with archery, bears, horses, and will o' the wisps.
Her pictures have mostly been of Merida, the heroine of the film, and most of the words she has wanted to write have been similarly brave inspired.
 We have had to stop her from tangling her hair to make it "all loopy"* as it became impossible to get a brush through it.
She has played at being Merida every day, casting me in the -highly confusing- role of Queen Eleanor, and calling on Phoebe to represent an entire set of triplets.

She has a new Brave sticker album** which she fills with great care and delicacy, and a bow and arrows set which she fires without them.
In short, she loves it.

We were pretty happy with it too.
The story was fairly predictable, and I wouldn't like to hear a Scottish person's opinion of the setting,*** but the scenery was beautiful, the plot well executed, the characters, though fairly one-dimensional,**** were nicely rendered, with Merida's hair being a triumph of the pixelated art, and the regal Queen Eleanor possessing sufficient flaws of body and mind to prevent her from appearing merely a noble cipher**** while being handled sympathetically enough to avoid her becoming a strait-laced straw-woman.
Also the archery was very impressive.

Most impressive of all, however, were the gender politics.
I don't mean just having a girl as the hero: most Disney films have a heroine after all.
I don't even mean the way that that girl turns her nose up at courtly matters in favour of jumping off rocks and shooting things: while it was nice to see a film eschewing the standard girl-in-pretty-dress-meets-boy-and-eventually-reaches-the-zenith-of-her-ambitions-by-marrying-him Disney plot, with everything that implies to its audience, this has been done before.
 What was impressive was the way they presented this.
Firstly: no-one is surprised by Merida's capabilities.
Queen Eleanor may disapprove of her preferences***** but there is no suggestion that girl should not enjoy, or be talented in, what are normally presented as masculine pursuits.
Although other characters are clearly impressed by her prowess with a bow, their reaction is very much that of the people of Sherwood on seeing Robin Hood in action: they gasp not because she is a girl but because she is just that good.
Actually that's not the only resemblance to Robin Hood in that scene.
And they may have been gasping for another reason too, but if I tell you about that it might give things away a little.
 Secondly and much more significantly: nobody is diminished by Merida's capability.

There is a tendency, in books or films where the girl is the hero, or at least in those where she takes a traditionally male role, to build her up by running everyone else down.
The girls rescue the boys while the boys either stumble around incompetently, or wait swooningly to be rescued displaying a decided lack of interest in saving themselves.
Kings and fathers in such tales tend to be rather bumbling and retiring, while Queens and mothers, while similarly ineffectual, are much more forthright and decisive.
The effect is generally somewhat pantomimic: it is as though a group of traditional fairytale characters had merely swapped clothes, the girls putting on trousers and tucking their ringlets up under knights' helms, while the boys pin on long flowing wigs and conceal their manly stride beneath long skirts.
 An obvious exception to this rule, and one in the Disney canon, is the story of Mulan, however as she really is a girl in boy's trousers, whose ability to be "one of the men" is treated as a rare and heroic attribute, this is not, in the end, a very positive example either.
 In Brave, however, Merida is strong, capable and independent, and not only does no-one suggest that she is unusual in this respect but no-one else is lessened to make her look better.
Her father, while not politically minded, is practical, capable and strong, her mother is intelligent and eloquent, the various male secondary characters are all people in their own right, in no need of rescue, and perfectly able to look after themselves if it came down to it.
 It is, in short, a story about a person with heroic abilities and equally heroic flaws, overcoming adversity to ultimately triumph.
It is, in short, a story.
That the heroine is female is entirely beside the point.

Eleanor, of course, isn't aware of any of this: she doesn't hear the film telling her that she's just as good as the boys because no-one has told her that she isn't.
So she doesn't notice the message that she can do anything a boy can do, she doesn't see the significance of a female heroine.
She just sees a story, a role-model, a game to play.
And that, to me, is the most significant thing of all.



*Nothing can be done about her mind.

** Sneaky maths strikes again!
Actually it's interesting to see how far she's come since the last sticker album, I suspect that by the end of this one she'll have gained as much benefit from the number-identification and so forth as she can.
Which lets me out of getting her another I suppose.

***Actually I would.

****In fact the loud, easy-going King Fergus seemed a far more stereotypical figure but this is somewhat forgivable as he is given less space for character development.

*****There wouldn't be much plot if she didn't.





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