On gender roles

Neatnik has developed quite a thing for the American Girl dolls. Even though the doll TazzMom located for her is a Kit doll and not a Samantha doll, Neatnik loves her mightily.

The beginning of this fascination with the American Girls began with one of the mystery books, The Curse of Ravenscourt, starring Samantha Parkington, naturally. Since that first story, Neatnik has read an additional 21 books in the American Girl product lines. She insisted that I read the books with her so I, too, have met Kaya, Felicity, Josephina, Kirsten, Rebecca, Molly, Julie, and their friends and families.

One of the best parts of the books are the "Looking Back" sections at the ends of the stories. These are little historical vignettes, footnotes to the action in the fictional stories which precede them.

All I knew about Angel Island before reading The Puzzle of the Paper Daughter was what I had learned in the Unsolved Mysteries episode about the three prisoners who escaped from Alcatraz. I now know that Angel Island served as an immigration clearing house on the west coast, similar in function to Ellis Island in the east.

I walk with one of Neatnik's classmate's moms on Wednesday mornings. She is moving her eldest daughter into the kids' old playroom. Part of the move entails repainting and cleaning out old toys, games, and books. She came across a small stack of American Girl books and called me early this Wednesday to see if Neatnik would like to have them.

Neatnik wrote a very nice thank you note this morning.

One of the books in the stack was Chrissa. Chrissa was the 2009 Doll of the Year, a fourth-grade girl whose family moved in with Nana after Grandpa passed away. Her story opens on her first day in a new school, where she meets a clique of bullying girls.

I decided to pre-screen this one and I am glad that I did. Not that I am going to forbid the Neatnik to read it. On the contrary, I want her to read it and I want to discuss the whole topic of bullying with her.

Many people seem to associate the term "bully" with a big, mean boy on the playground. He's bigger than the rest of the kids because he was left back a grade and he's mean and bitter because he's just not as smart as his younger classmates. He demands that other kids give him their lunch money and pushes and punches any boy who tries to stand up to him.

While this is the profile for some bullies, it certainly cannot describe all bullies. Boys tend to be more physical and obvious in their bullying techniques. Girls tend to be more psychological and sneaky. Chrissa's story explores the bullying tactics of a couple of fourth-grade girls.

These stories, the historical and the contemporary, got me to thinking this morning. Why is it that societies try to force girls and boys into rigid molds? Why is it that a tall, strong boy is "all-boy" and that is a good thing while a tall, strong girl gets labeled an "Amazon" in a derogatory tone? How come a short, compact girl is called "petite" by smiling adults but a boy who is the same size gets tagged as "puny" with a shake of the head and a hope that he "sprouts up" come high school?

Girls are expected to play with dolls and boys are expected to play with trucks. It is okay for a girl to play with a car if it comes with her doll and a boy can play with dolls if they are soldiers which come with tanks and guns but that's as far as playing with cross-gender toys goes for many parents.

We are a bit counter to the norm, I think. We encouraged Neatnik to play with dolls and cars and trucks. We bought her jeans and skirts and dresses. We feel that it this healthier and more holistic.

Besides, you can't easily climb a tree in a frilly tea party dress, now can you?

What would happen if you tracked a group of children from infancy to adulthood? Not to suggest that the study monitors force parents into a parenting style with which they would not be comfortable, but simply accept them and assign them to the group which matched their style. There would be four groups: girls/dolls only, boys/trucks only, girls/dolls and trucks, and boys/dolls and trucks.

I wonder what we would see in twenty or thirty years.

My guess is that the girls who played with dolls and trucks would be more self-sufficient than their doll-only counterparts. Similarly, I think the boys who played with dolls as well as trucks would be more nurturing as fathers than their age-mates who only played with cars and trucks.

I am probably out on a limb here already, so I'll venture out on my branch a little farther and suggest that we'd also see that the dolls only girls would be more likely to have engaged only in "lady-like" physical activities and the trucks only boys more likely to have played team contact sports exclusively. I'd suppose that the girls and boys who played with all kinds of toys would be more likely to have played a variety of types of athletics, a mixing of gentler, non-contact activities and rough and tumble sports.

The way I see it, boys should learn to cook, clean, and sew on a button just as girls should learn how to use power tools, replace an electrical outlet, and install new bathroom fixtures.

Anyone else care to toss their opinion into this touchy subject?