News Flash: The Limiting Narratives we Feed our Children

The Limiting Narratives we Feed our Children

            Throughout history, humans have attempted to organize their societies by creating dichotomies that make it easier for them to do so. We have seen such separations as “black” and “white”, “democrat” and “republican”, and “homosexual” and “heterosexual”. These polarized separations make it easier for authority to create laws and institutions without having to take into account the needs of many different groups of people. While that in itself is problematic, many issues arise in addition to the simple existence of the dichotomies. Every polarization creates categories that act as cultural templates into which different members of society are placed. Each of these templates carries with them certain expectations of roles and responsibilities that are imposed upon those people that they are applied to. Perhaps the most glaring example of a destructive dichotomy, and indeed that upon which much of the world’s organization is based, is that of gender. Whether you are born a male or a female essentially defines the social path of your life; it carries implications revolving around what you will wear, how you will act, and with whom you will associate. This becomes even more of an issue when you consider that many individuals are born without a defined sex. I would argue that it is exactly these connotative roles and responsibilities associated with gender that lock the dichotomy in place, creating through their very existence a cycle of societally driven identity theft.

            This video from Upworthy (27-2-14) does an excellent job of highlighting some of the roles that children are locked into once they are assigned a gender identity to grow up with. It begins with what is usually the first question asked when a baby is born; is it a boy or a girl? Perhaps the use of the word “it” shows how the child is very much un-human in the eyes of society until it has a gender attached to it (Notice how as soon as the children are identified as male or female, “it” is replaced by “he” and “she”). The video then goes on to show in what ways the child will grow up depending on which gender category it fits into, by putting a girl on the left of the screen and a boy on the right. The creators of the video were very careful in their rhetoric, noting how the girl will need to be pretty, and the boy will need to have a truck. These are not cultural suggestions, but rather cultural requirements. They highlight the word pretty in pink, a traditionally feminine color, and say that the truck must be blue, a traditionally masculine color. Essentially, the point of the first half of the video is to emphasize how one’s gender locks them into these traditions, and how their life track is much less in their control than they would like to think.    

            Now, I would like to disambiguate a part of my thesis that states that the existence of the gender dichotomy propagates a “cycle of societally driven identity theft”. What I mean by this is that the creation of roles and responsibilities to accompany one gender or another projects a certain idea of “normal”. This can be seen in the Upworthy video, through the clips of commercials advertising various “girls’ and boys’ toys”. What is so problematic about the gender dichotomies is that to deviate from them is effectively to be abnormal. It is no mistake that girls are featured in the commercial selling baking toys while boys are featured in the commercial selling Hulk Hands. The media is very deliberately telling both children and parents that these toys are meant for either one gender or another, and that to cross those lines is to subject yourself to social ridicule. Since going against the expectations placed upon them by society would lead parents and children to being seen as abnormal, and consciously bringing about abnormality unto oneself is understandably seen as undesirable, it is therefore evident how society decides a large portion of the identity of children based solely upon their gender. Social projections of who should do what trap parents into a cycle of imposing the identity-stealing dichotomy on their children, who know no better than to continue the cycle when they themselves are parents. Hence, “cycle of societally driven identity theft”. 

            The second half of the movie contains several monologues concerning either the oppressive forces that hold members of society in the gender dichotomy or suggested directions in which society should head. For instance, one woman speaks about how women are taught by society to see themselves as objects. It is culturally ingrained, via the submissive/dominant social relationship that is conditioned into women/men respectively, that women must make themselves pretty to win over men. They are told that without the addition of makeup and revealing clothing, they are not beautiful. This is clearly very harmful to the self-esteem of women, because as Beyoncé put it, Pretty Hurts (I had to). Still, such an institution as the makeup industry continues to exist unquestioned. This simply goes back to the idea that to go against the gender dichotomy is to submit to the abnormal, and to face social rejection in the name of breaking the polarization. The video also discusses how boys as well are locked into harmful gender templates, expected to be strong and suppress emotion. To combat this, it was suggested that “we need to redefine strength in men, not as the power over other people, but as forces for justice. And justice means equality and fairness, and working against poverty, and working against inequality and violence. That's strength”. I think that quote beautifully encompasses a potential method to alleviate the toxicity of words like “strength” and “beauty”, which is not to remove them but to redefine them, giving them positive rather than negative social implications for individuals.

            Next, touching upon a point that I mentioned much earlier, there is the very real fact that many children are born without the social luxury of neatly fitting into a gender binary, as can easily be seen in Anne Fausto-Sterling’s book, Sexing the Body (2000). Whether it be physical differences or psychological identity differences, there are those who defy traditional male/female roles. These are the people whom the dichotomy of gender affects most profoundly. How does a biological male with a female identity respond to the social cues to play with trucks and like the color blue? How does this child feel seeing female children indulge in traditional female roles while ze knows that there is no societally acceptable way for hir to do that? The dissection of gender into male and female categories wreaks unthinkable havoc on the emotional well being of these intersex/transgendered children. Think back to the Upworthy video; if a child is misplaced into a certain gender category, they will grow up having that gender category thrown at them from every direction. The biological male child from my example above will be bought trucks. Ze will be told to play sports. Ze will be told to suppress their emotion to show strength. Ze will be told to be a man, when in reality, ze is very much not able to do that. The risk of backlash from abnormality will prevent hir from feasibly being able to cross gender polarized lines, forever locking hir in the incorrect gender category, lest ze face significant social repercussions. While crossing gender boundaries is possible, it is no small feat.

            Still, the reason we don’t feel the presence of those intersex individuals is because of the medical world’s role in the suppression of their voices and subsequently the promotion of the gender dichotomy. Fausto-Sterling writes that in situations of an intersex newborn child, the birth becomes very urgent. Doctors rush to attempt to surgically assign the child a gender that fits into one of the two allowed categories, considering the birth certificate incomplete until this step is finished. Many parents are under-informed concerning the nature of the child’s condition, and are not aware of exact reasons that surgery is necessary. This interference of the medical world is just another example of how the gender dichotomy is truly bolstered from all ends of society, even by those doctors in whom we put so much faith.         

            As the Upworthy video says, it’s time to rewrite history. The only way to break the cycle of societal identity theft is to break the deeply rooted gender connotations that exist in our world. Parents must stop forcing gender identity upon their children. Women must stop believing that their worth is defined by their appearance. The medical world must stop refusing to acknowledge the existence of more than two sexes. While these are tall orders, they are not unreachable goals. They require accepting abnormality, and realizing that social discomfort precedes social progression. As we have seen in the past and will continue to see in the future, only when we are forced to adapt to a new situation will we truly learn how to do so.