Free To Be Me, In Whatever Color I Choose

Three years ago I was completely befuddled by the gender assigned toy choices offered at McDonald's. Sent to buy food for a classroom celebration I had no idea that beyond choosing nuggets or burgers, I also had to assign to them gender specific, and hopefully correct, toys. I got it all wrong. The Gap makes it so much easier. No confusion at all when I walk in, boys clothing on the right, girls on the left, and please don't cross to the wrong side, simply not tolerated. Even my old workhorse L.L. Bean offers clear direction when shopping; Mary's flannel lined jeans are labeled boys because her flannel is primary colored, the girl's version being lined with a soon to fade pastel plaid. Pass.

McDonald's has recently agreed, at the urging of a determined teenager, that there need not be a distinction of boy toy or girl toy. Wonderful news! Now, while feeding our children processed and unhealthy food we need not force feed them gender stereotypes; who wouldn't see that as a victory? The comments associated with the article say otherwise. Ranging from " I'm gonna puke" to "This is a bunch of crap", the general consensus is that this type of effort to invoke change was unnecessary and a complete waste of time when far more pressing issues, say poverty and lack of freedoms, should be the focus. A curious issue to raise when the matter at hand is offering a child the freedom to choose the toy that they like best, without regard to what McDonald's has deemed acceptable, based on their sex.

For my part I applaud anyone who takes a stand and, beyond complaining (which is what I did when faced with this insanity), actually does something to make change happen. It seems there are those who feel that asking a mega corporation to stop pushing gender stereotypes onto our children is an inconsequential use of time, or that by not qualifying toys based on sex we are somehow creating confusion in our children. Because it is certain, if we don't level with them now, if we are not clear in directing girls to play with Barbies and boys to play with trucks (or the non toy video game level equivalent of which I know absolutely nothing about) then our children will grow up not knowing which way to turn when they walk into the Gap. If we don't tell them, how will they know?

Don't Dress Your Cat in an Apron

Although I must tell you his favorite toy
Is a little play stove with pans and with pots,
Which he really must like, 'cause he plays with it lots,
So perhaps he's a girl -- which kind of makes sense,
Since he can't throw a ball and he can't climb a fence,
But neither can dad -- and I know he's a man,
And mom is a woman and she drives a van.
Maybe the problem is in trying to tell
Just what someone is by what she does well?
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/marlo-thomas/my-dog-is-a-plumber-lyrics/#J4G2F561lJSqKFMK.99

My dog is a plumber. He must be a boy,
Although I must tell you his favorite toy
Is a little play stove with pans and with pots,
Which he really must like, 'cause he plays with it lots,
So perhaps he's a girl -- which kind of makes sense,
Since he can't throw a ball and he can't climb a fence,
But neither can dad -- and I know he's a man,
And mom is a woman and she drives a van.
Maybe the problem is in trying to tell
Just what someone is by what she does well?
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/marlo-thomas/my-dog-is-a-plumber-lyrics/#J4G2F561lJSqKFMK.99

My dog is a plumber. He must be a boy,
Although I must tell you his favorite toy
Is a little play stove with pans and with pots,
Which he really must like, 'cause he plays with it lots,
So perhaps he's a girl -- which kind of makes sense,
Since he can't throw a ball and he can't climb a fence,
But neither can dad -- and I know he's a man,
And mom is a woman and she drives a van.
Maybe the problem is in trying to tell
Just what someone is by what she does well?
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/marlo-thomas/my-dog-is-a-plumber-lyrics/#J4G2F561lJSqKFMK.99

Don't dress your cat in an apron
Just 'cause he's learning to bake.
Don't put your horse in a nightgown
Just 'cause he can't stay awake.
Don't dress your snake in a muu-muu
Just 'cause he's off on a cruise.
Don't dress your whale in galoshes
If she really prefers overshoes.
A person should wear what he wants to
And not just what other folks say.
A person should do what he likes to -
A person's a person that way.

-Dan Greenburg
 

Don't Dress Your Cat in an Apron, from the still wonderful Free to Be You and Me, which I love now as much as I did when it first came out in 1974. Created by Marlo Thomas who was shocked to find that books for children reinforced stereotypes of what boys and girls were supposed to be, she set out to put together a book that taught children they could be whatever they wanted. Sadly those pink and blue lessons still dominate much of what is published for children today, Free to Be You and Me still necessary, and enjoyed, after all these years.

Does That Come in any Other Color?

It happened again this weekend, "will the boys be bowling today?". At a birthday party for a six year old girl my children were erroneously identified, yet again, as boys. Happens all the time, really, and it doesn't bother me at all, nor does it seem to affect the emotional growth of my two girls who, dressed in navy corduroys and sweaters, were off and hurling bowling balls at each other before any of us had a chance to respond.

We hear it more frequently in the winter, when they are often buried beneath coats and hats, which is the one thing that does bother me as I suspect I have sniffed out the real reason for the incorrect gender identification: they have blue coats. The horror. Not only are they blue but they reverse to green, and not a light and frothy green, but a good dark hunter green, quite attractive with the navy opposite side. But, I have found, decidedly masculine, as I should have known, I bought them in the boys section. To be fair, I had no choice, at least not in the girls department, the only offering being a pink coat that reversed to purple. Boys coats came in red and orange and blue and green, a virtual rainbow compared to the lone option deemed appropriate for girls.

You find it in every single store, one side screams at you in pink and fuchsia and all shades of violet, the other subtly speaks in blues and greens and reds. When they were quite young, still sleeping away the afternoon in their blue stroller, I pushed them into the Baby Gap in need of socks, small white crew socks that I knew I could find in the gender neutral section near the cash wrap. Baby Gap being one of the very worst offenders in the color coded wall segregation, it is not a store I frequent, but they do make darn fine socks. In the far corner I spied a sale rack and pushed the double wide over to see what was available.

Androgynous Looking Sales Clerk: Can I help you find something?
Me: Just looking thank you.

She hovered.

ALSC: Are they twins? (long pause, some inspection) Girls?
Me: Twin girls, yes.

Clearly she was helped by the large flower on the front of their matching red fleece jackets, but still thrown, they were red piped in blue.

ALSC: You know this is the boys section, right?
Me: Yes, thank you.

A pair, two pairs of blue and white seersucker pants, in the right size, I grabbed them, spring was just a few months away.

ALSC: Oh, those? Wouldn't you like to check the girls rack? We have plenty of items on sale there, so many things that would be just perfect for them.

At this point she actually reached for my seersucker pants, so horrified that I would consider putting them on my daughters, small people she did not know at all and in fact could barely identify as girls, but still thought she knew best what would be perfect for them. Something I imagine to be part of a Baby Gap sales clerk final exam, which she really nailed: what color is best suited for baby girls? Pink. Passed, to the sales floor with you!

Me: Really? No thank you, we'll take these.
ALSC: You know we had those in pink, maybe they are still here, let me check.

She took off for the color appropriate wall, I ran for the door.

To be clear, and so that I am not thought of as a horrible mother who denies her daughters all that is available to them in the world, they own pink clothing. More of it in the summer, owed to my personal Lilly Pulitzer driven ideology that pink is a summer color, but yes, there are pink t-shirts in the drawer, and also blue and green and yellow. They are offered a choice in clothing, as they are in many aspects of their five year old life.

If it's true, if girls can really be anything they want when they grow up, that Hillary Clinton might one day be President, or Sarah Palin, why is it that we teach our daughters that they must be wearing pink when they take the oath of office?