I’m sure you’ve all seen the latest story about the frat guys who hung signs up basically insinuating that they’d be having all the sex with all the freshman girls. It happens year after year, time and time again, across every campus in America… and maybe other countries too, although I feel in my gut that America is the worst. Anyone know for sure?
Anyway, every time I see these things I roll my eyes. I don’t get angry and scared for the girls, which I know many people do, which is why news anchors say idiotic things like “I’ll put my daughter in a convent” or “I’ll keep mine home in the kitchen.” Instead, I say, women are intelligent. Did you know most of us can read now and everything?? Why not put a little faith into the women to make a good decision. Why do we assume that the freshman girls will be lining up to let these guys have their way with them. Like we are helpless and find ourselves drawn to their sexy signs about banging us and our moms. Oh, I’m turned on just thinking about it. *This is the part where I roll my eyes*
Do you know where this world is going wrong with raising girls and boys? We treat them differently. We treat boys like they are supposed to brag about their conquests. We treat girls to be embarrassed or ashamed about theirs, and it begins in infancy.
Whaaaaaat?? You say, confused by conquests in infancy, but let me explain….
When E was a little, tiny, baby girl, we went to a friends house who had a little, tiny, baby boy. They rolled on the floor together (as neither of them could crawl or talk or do much of anything but roll), and they eventually got near each other and grabbed each others hands. It was one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. What wasn’t so cute, however, was my husband growling and the boys father saying “that’s my boy!”
And that’s where it starts. You don’t notice it, because you think it’s funny, or cute, or whatever, but that’s where it starts. We automatically think about daughters and sons as totally different beings. We buy boys blue and girls pink, even though those are just colors and mean absolutely nothing. We make boys play with Legos and make girls play with dolls. We buy girls kitchen sets and brooms, we buy boys toy trucks and building sets. I met a girl at a nail salon who said she wanted a boy because she wanted a child that could play soccer and watch sports. My daughter has two soccer balls, which she loves to kick around, and she loves to watch football. I know, she’s two, but she loves it. She even does the touchdown sign.
Girls and boys aren’t different beings because they have different sex organs. They are different beings because we make them believe they are. Women struggle to be heard, and men struggle to show emotion, both because they are told these are not important things for them, just to realize later in life that they are, but it’s too late, we’ve already been raised to believe that we are different and have rolls based on what’s hiding in our pants.
Women are more than a vagina, men are more than a penis. Teach your children from the start that they are no different from one another and maybe, maybe, one day we can have the kind of world where we don’t see gender as being a defining criteria for life. Maybe women won’t think that their sexuality is a powerful tool, and the only tool, to get ahead in life, and maybe men won’t think they have the right to do and say whatever they want just because they are told they are the dominant sex.
Let’s remember that we are all human. One species, not two separate species. Let’s teach our children to love and respect one another, to hold hands, to play soccer, to watch football, and pretend to cook together. Let’s start now, before the cycle repeats itself.
Wifey, Mommy, and What Have You 