I didn’t think that I have been pussyfooting around gender issues but after yesterday, I realised that I have been too polite.

 

I’ve mentioned in a previous blog that our Rainbow Child wants a dress and since I’m a parent on a journey, I thought I’d ease him in with a rainbow tutu that I stumbled across.  Since I did not have something for his older brother – I know he wouldn’t want one – I said it was a late birthday gift from my sister.

 

As expected, KG was so excited, put it on over his clothes, and happily pranced around the house. When I had to run out for an errand, he asked if he could join me but immediately said “I need to take this off”, gesturing to the tutu. I assured him that it would be ok to go out like that and he jumped into the car with it on but was not convinced.

 

There is no point in forcing a child to do something that will cause further trauma.

 

The short trip down the road was a mini pep talk, me trying to get him to be confident enough to walk into a store with a skirt on. I was met with variations of, “What if there are children? What if they laugh at me?”. I gave up the teachable moment as we arrived at our destination. There is no point in forcing a child to do something that will cause further trauma. He took off the item. As soon as we returned to the car after shopping, he put it back on.

 

I am furious. Since my eldest started school in 2017, the “this is for girls, this is for boys” crap has come home. Six years later, I’m not just tired of it, it’s annoying. This is 2022. Gender equality. Diversity. Inclusion. We’ve been crying for this. Where do we think it starts?

 

Where everything starts, in our homes. As we teach our children to love themselves, respect themselves, be confident, embrace their uniqueness, and so on, we have a responsibility to remind them that other children must be given the same liberties. We also need to do the same. Don’t worry that your children don’t listen to you, worry that they watch what you do.

 

All the nurturing, support, and encouragement from home come to naught as the power of peer pressure overrides.

 

I now have a 7-year-old who is being forced to conform to what society dictates is appropriate clothing, and by inference, behaviour, for boy children. I am furious. All the nurturing, support, and encouragement from home come to naught as the power of peer pressure overrides. And educating hundreds of impressionable souls together in large groups is still a thing.

 

This patriarchal, chauvinistic, antiquated, bigoted society that has brought us gender-based violence is alive and well. It’s thriving. There’s a generation of children – from millennials, by the way, the same millennials who were so despondent with previous generations and were going to change the world – that are subjected to patriarchal constructs at home and are replicating en masse.

 

Sadly, many don’t even realise that they’re boxed in patriarchy.

 

We want a generation of innovators, out-the-box thinkers, and liberators who are going to change the narrative, yet we don’t make conscious choices about what we expose them to. We keep buying our boys varying shades of blue as though it’s the colour of holiness. Sadly, many don’t even realise that they’re boxed in patriarchy. The very thing we’re fighting against.  

 

Wake up. We’re in 2022. It’s time to change our worldview.  

 

How do we think that our boys will be raised into nurturing, responsible, caring fathers, husbands, leaders? By telling them not to play with dolls or have tea parties, they must not cry cause “boys don’t cry”. Oh, you think that they will miraculously arrive at adulthood and these qualities will materialise from the ether because they go to private schools, live in suburbs, are well taken care of, and the monsters are the others.

 

I fully understand that the weight of gender inequality can paralyse us. It’s horrific and unconscionable. It’s too much, too painful. But we always have a choice. We don’t need our names in lights. We don’t need awards and praise. We just need to start influencing those around us. Our families, our communities.

 

Gender equality in this lifetime? Not if we continue to be unconscious and by default, support the anarchy of male dominance.

 

I am going to stay furious on this one. You’ve been warned.

 

Pic credit @AntonSiebrits