Your Normal and Their Normal

Your Normal and Their Normal

My whole life I have heard it said that boys are to act this way and to dress this way but, now I am starting to feel that just because you’re a boy doesn’t mean that you are going to grow up to have male tendencies and that not all guys or girls are the same. The world today has a binary judgment on how boys should be and how girls should be and its getting challenged everyday by the new generation. If a woman gets a position that a man would have its okay, but then if a man is a stay at home dad it is looked down upon. In today’s society everything is gender based directly and indirectly. Clothing stores and toy stores do not specifically label isles saying “this is the boy section for toys and this girl toy section”. The stores are usually set up as color coded or even the store layout may split the store in half as soon as you walk in to show what side is for women and the other is for men.

            When I was younger the boys would play sports and be rough all the time, while girls where the gossipers and wanted to have well needed girl time. As I got older that seemed to changed. Many girls where playing in the “boys” only sports like football, baseball, and soccer. Guys went into arts academies and were beginning to do many of the things girls were accustomed to. I found a balance between the two. I spend a decent amount of time with my female friends and my guy friends. I have a mix of friends that like to do the same things though. Girls were stapled to only shop, cook and be a home body but, many of my guy friends like to do the things that girls will do. In present day many dads are home bodies and women are the bread winners.

            Many of these stigmas are getting to children in school and in the home to the point that some teachers are doing more mixed group activities to show that boys and girls can do the same thing. Melissa Ballow Tempel is an elementary school teacher, her class was having some issues with understanding that yes a girl can dress like a boy and still be girl. “Unfortunately, it wasn't until I had a child dealing with gender variance in my classroom that I realized how important it is to teach about gender and break down gender stereotypes.”(Tempel 4) So Tempel had her class make a list of toys that boys like and a list of girl toys. Then Tempel looked them over to see that some things where for boys and girls and not just boys. This whole group activity exercise was to show the boys and girls that the can both like the same things and that it okay. This whole thought of wanting to deal with gender stereotypes was all brought about by a little girl named Allie in Tempel’s class. Allie liked to dress like a boy and was made fun of for wearing boy’s clothes. 

            So now, what a huge amount of parents are starting to do is instead of telling their child that they are a boy or girl and that they are to act a certain way; Parents are letting the child decide on whether or not they want to be a boy or girl or referenced in a certain way. Many parents are starting to buy medications that slow down the process of puberty so that the child can make the decision on their on whether or not they want to be a boy or girl. Some are even sending their sons away to camps that are not gender based at all and it setup so that boys can dress like girls and dress like boys and this is two shows that it is perfectly fine to do so. I myself have not encountered this, but I have heard in my health services program in high school about the use of hormones to bog down the process of puberty. I can say personally that there some people that I did and do go to school with that say they wish that they had a choice on whether they could choose what type of lifestyle they wished to live. Now many of them aren’t sure on how they want to come out about their homosexuality. At the same time it is difficult for some parents to understand that their son or daughter does not want to be either a boy or girl; that their son may want to wear a dress, but society was so straight forward that boys should do this and wear this and girls should wear this and do that it is making it hard for especially dads to know that maybe that their son or daughter may be going through a phase and the son will grow out of wanting to wear a dress and the daughter will be their little girl the father always wanted and to just give it time for the child to know how comfortable they are personally. Parents need to accept the child any which way the child picks to be represented.

In the article, What so Bad about a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress by: Ruth Padawer, there is one family in particular that was going through the whole gender-fluid phase with their child. Susan and Rob had a son who wanted to wear his dress to school and they sent out an email about the choice they were making about how they are okay with their son wearing a dress to school and wanted to educated people about gender variance. They attached an article about it to the email they sent out. Susan and Rob came to the decision of “the important thing was to teach Alex not to be ashamed of who he feels he is.”(Padawar 1) Since then, Susan and Rob son Alex has decided that he wanted to be referenced as a boy, but still likes to play with dolls and paint his nails though he likes to play with more boy toys than girl toys.

The stereo typical thoughts about how boys and girls should be different needs to change. If man is a stay at home dad it’s looked down upon, but if a woman does a man’s job its glorified. None of which is okay and that both genders should be looked as equal so that society can accept whether or not a guy wants to be a girl or if a girl wants to be a guy. Those choices are not looked down upon.