WEBVTT - The Pink & Blue Divide w/ Lisa Selin Davis 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.400 Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda Land Audio 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:15.040 in partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi, everybody, welcome back 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:19.280 to Katie's Crib. I Am Katie Lowe's okay, so expecting 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.760 Mama's know that the moment you find out you're pregnant, 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.439 the question that shortly follows is what are you having? 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.479 And everyone in their cousin is happy to put on 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.879 their detective hats share their predictions. Oh it's a boy 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.720 because you're craving sweet over salty. Oh it's gotta be 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.480 a girl because you're feeling like crap. Then there's also 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.639 the gender revealed parties, which have really taken off over 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.199 the years. People are finding creative and at times like 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.760 very dangerous ways to reveal the sex of their baby 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.800 to be. And as a mom who was ecstatic sobbed 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.560 when I found out I was having a girl, I 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.560 get it, but I really I got me thinking how 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.480 this pink blue divide affects our kids and what our 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.959 ideas about what's normal for boys and girls reveals about 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.319 our society. So here to speak to us today about 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:12.600 gender norms and more is Lisa Sellen Davis. Lisa is 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.680 an essayist, she's a novelist, she's a journalist, and she 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:17.600 is the author of the book we are going to 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.800 be unpacking today. The book is called Tomboy, The Surprising 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.120 History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different. Lisa, 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.000 thank you so much for joining me on Katie's Crib. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.360 Thank you for having me on. I'm not sure exactly 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.440 when this episode airs, but I am like three weeks 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:38.679 from having a girl, unless she tells me otherwise. But 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.880 there's inherently different conversations going on than when I had 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.360 my son, and I am obsessed with Lisa's book. It 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.200 goes along with the two seventeen op ed in New 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.920 York Times that went totally viral. So tell me what 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.960 inspired you to write tom Boy? First of all, I mean, 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.160 the first thing that led me to write it was 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.320 having an here who veered away from traditional gender norms. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.720 So in preschool, when kids were really starting to conform 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.440 and boys and girls were starting to separate and play differently, 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.320 girls were starting to play more with girls and boys 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.000 with boys. My kid was not doing that. My kids 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:21.160 stayed right in the middle, played with everybody, played with everything. 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.040 You know, it was happy to play princess, but wanted 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.320 to be the dog. By the way, since she's going 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.160 to middle school in the living room, I just heard 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.639 her read a story for her humanities class and it 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.080 took place from the point of view of a dog, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.200 and I was like, she've got her wish. She's the 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.839 She's the dog. So, as I do with all complicated 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.560 things in my life, I wrote about that initially, and 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.960 about the complicated feelings around, like being a feminist and 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.919 wanting to have a kid who rejected all that feminine stuff, 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.120 but then also being confused by it right, And what 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:05.240 happened was over the years, as she continued being different 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:11.040 from the other girls, um very very kind people who 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.760 knew her well were assuming that she was trans or 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.160 wanted a different pronoun her name, or to change in 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.120 the boys locker room, and it was all out of 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.520 loving kindness, but it was also so based not on 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.799 what she said, but on gender stereotypes. So it was 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.440 very confusing for me, as someone who was raised hardcore feminist, 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.000 to see the way that all this stuff that we 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.960 worked so hard to say didn't just belong to boys 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.320 was making people think that she actually was a boy. 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.280 So I wrote about that in there was a big response. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.520 I would say most of it positive, but the negative 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.560 was so negative. And I think the combination of all 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.000 those things, along with thinking why were there so many 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.560 kind of tomboy kids when I was young and there 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.560 aren't that many today, what happened. It's really that whole 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.240 mix of things that led me to think there's a 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.960 book's worth of material here. Oh my god, it's fascinating. 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:14.560 It's absolutely fascinating. Um. You mentioned that there was some 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.440 backlash from the op ed particularly Um I was informed 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:24.080 that it was from the transgender community. Okay, So when 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.320 you dug into that sort of stuff, the backlash, what 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.440 did you what conversations did you have with them? Well, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.919 there were some people who wrote articles arguing against my 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.200 piece and saying, you know, what I was talking about 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.280 was how do we support trans kids but not assume 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.839 that a girl who is, you know, pushing against gender 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:51.280 norms is trans. And I had no idea that I 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.919 was like, not just stepping on feet, but stepping on 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.480 land lines with this. I did not know that there 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.360 was a kind of feminist trans culture war going on, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.559 which is not monolithic, right, Not all trans people feel 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.000 one way, not all feminists feel one way, but there 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.080 was a very vocal minority of people, and so some 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.320 of them felt that I had a son and I 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.680 was abusing my son, and my you know, that my 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.400 my son was going to kill himself and um. And 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.200 and that was like, you know, actually kind of proving 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.000 my point of like why why are gender stereotypes and 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:33.360 gender identity the same thing? And UM, I don't even 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.520 it's years later, I don't have an answer to that question. 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.520 I think it's a delicate, difficult thing to talk about. 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:43.880 Other people were saying, you're blaming trans people for adults 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.039 narrow understanding of gender. So what I did was I 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.840 contacted some of the people who had criticized me, but 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.880 I also contacted a bunch of prominent trans people like 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:59.359 Kate Bornstein. I contacted Chase Strango, who's a lawyer for 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.000 the a c L who had written this very viral 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:08.160 piece arguing against mine, UM, a number of trans experts 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.719 and gender therapists to really say, Okay, you think I've 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.680 got this wrong, Um, let's tell me more about that 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:22.440 and um. And that was a wonderful experience because I 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:27.920 did learn two see gender from multiple points of view 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:30.880 and in the end. I don't think I learned that 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.560 I was wrong. I stand by my original point, but 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:39.440 I did learn how to keep those viewpoints in mind 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.039 as I wrote how to be more sensitive, how to 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.839 be more inclusive, and how to write about one of 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:53.119 the most difficult subjects in a way that hopefully didn't 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.960 make vulnerable people more vulnerable. So it was, it was, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.840 It was a growth experience. Can you all me like, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.000 just so that we're all understanding the same terminology? Like 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.240 what who is considered a tom boy? What is that? 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.120 What's the history of the term. Well, it turns out 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.040 I had to have a basically a whole chapter on 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.440 defining that term because it turned out to be so hard. 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.280 What does it mean? So it dates back to the 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:25.600 fift hundreds, and it originally meant a really boisterous, like wild, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.239 misbehaving boy because tom means tom type, tom cat, tom 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.480 turkey means male type and boy ment boy. After that 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.119 it started to mean a kind of lascibious like slutty woman, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.320 and then about a hundred years later it meant a 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.320 misbehaving girl who act like a boy, and that was 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.160 an insult for like two hundred years and in the 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.880 in the nineteenth century, it actually became a term of pride, 0:07:55.480 --> 0:08:00.480 so much so that the whole many parts of the 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:05.120 culture started encouraging women to raise their daughters as tomboys. 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:10.280 It became a method of child rearing to create healthy, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.560 strong girls. But a lot of the stuff that we 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.640 would say was tomboyish acting like a boy is so 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.679 rooted in the time and the culture and race and class, 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.760 and there were things like whistling was considered a boy's activity, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.240 So you would be a tomboy if you whistled, and 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.720 you would be and you would be. You couldn't dress 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.600 like a boy in the nineteenth century. It didn't matter 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.480 what clothes you were wearing. But your clothes might be 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.479 ripped or torn or shabbier because you've been playing baseball 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.280 and climbing trees. So all these things that we think 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.520 of as boy typical and girl typical they shift depending 0:08:49.679 --> 0:09:05.640 on what's happening in our culture at the time. When 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:10.240 I think of the word tomboy, I immediately go to 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.640 like characters like Joe March and Little Women, And for me, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.319 like tomboy is a positive thing. Yet boys who are 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:23.520 interested in like stereotypical girl role norms. They're called derogatory 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.160 terms like sissy for example. What is the root of 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.160 this and what did your research reveal? Oh yeah, I 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.560 mean from the beginning, there's been the idea that this 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.920 kind of latitude that girls have to cross over into 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:44.400 boy territory that's tolerated or even encouraged. That's never happened 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:46.600 for boys. I think we're on the cusp of it now. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.080 And there's never even been a positive word for a 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.520 boy like that. We have nancy boy, we have sissy. 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:57.800 That's you can right. No one wants to be called that, 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.480 and no one says that a initiatively. UM. One of 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.800 the things that really surprised me and the research was 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.560 finding out that until a hundred years ago, young boys 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.640 and girls, until about age six, when they went to 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:16.040 school UM were dressed the same, and they had long hair, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.880 and they wore dresses, and they were lace and flowers 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.160 and frills, and none of that stuff was girl stuff, 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.440 and there weren't gendered colors. Kids were dressed according to age, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.680 not sex, because the way that people understood gender, sex 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.280 and sexuality was that they were all mixed together in 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.360 their minds. Thinking about a little boy being a little 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.640 man was forced you to think about them as a 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.079 sexual being, and they didn't want to do that. And 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.760 the reason that that changed was that the fields of 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:51.360 psychology and sexology advanced and they began to think of 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:58.720 gay people as a classification of person. And the idea 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.480 was that the Nurk sure made you gay, not nature. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.440 So they started encouraging boys to be in boy clothes, 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:11.040 because God forbid, they were wearing dresses and those sort 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.839 of icy things till they're five or six. Then God, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.240 we've done something. They might be feminine, and then they 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.280 might be gay, because femininity and homosexuality were linked together 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:25.079 in people's minds. So the whole practice of dressing boys 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:29.040 in boys clothes and like never putting them in in 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.240 pink and frills and whatnot is to make sure that 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.800 they're not gay. And that was very hard for me 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:41.400 to stomach. I'm like, wow, there's abba it's literally woven 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.720 into our clothes. You know. I can't tell you how 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:49.600 different um I've I haven't. I've been very fortunate and 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.360 that I have not bought a single thing um for 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.960 my baby coming. I have a lot of friends who 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.839 had girls, and they sent me all their stuff it 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:05.760 looks like the closet barfed unicorns and rainbows of pink 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:13.280 and purple, and I it's such a struggle because the 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.160 one part of me is like this is a nightmare, 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:16.480 and the other part of me is like this ship 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.800 is free, Like I don't want to buy anything like 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.600 this is amazing. Um, tell me about pink and blue. 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:29.520 Tell me about where did this divide derive from? Well, 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:34.640 first of all, most people don't know what they're participating in, 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.720 what the roots of it are. And then the messages 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.679 they perpetuated by participating, they're not even awake to know. 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.040 I mean they think that there's there's boy stuff and 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.720 there's girls stuff. And I think now people say like 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.640 it's fine, So what what's wrong with pink? And what's wrong? 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.080 And you know nothing? The answer is nothing. That the 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:57.680 problem is the messages encoded in the different toys and activities, clothes, 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.880 and just the way we treat boys and girls differently. 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.600 In our minds, we don't, but all the research shows 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.040 that we do. And if you don't know the sex 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.440 of the baby objectively, someone tells you you will treat 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:15.400 that child differently, which is research that my family has lived. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.520 When people have have assumed my child was a boy 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.280 or a girl. She has actually experienced being treated completely 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.160 differently right in front of us. And I think, I 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.160 think the thing that's important to know about the pink 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.080 blue divide and everything that's lumped in it is, you know, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:39.520 pink has only really been considered completely a girl's color 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:41.720 since the middle of the last century, and it was 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:46.400 contested before. When they started gendering colors, maybe in the 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.160 in the twenties. Sometimes some places would say that blue 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:54.000 was for girls because it was associated with the virgin mary, 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.400 and pink was for boys because it's part of red, 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.120 and red is masculine. And these ideas were contests, did 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:05.480 and debated, and eventually for various reasons, including the growth 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.600 of suburbia and consumer culture in the fifties and the 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:13.160 fact that Mamie Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's wife loved pink and 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:17.720 decorative and pink, and these things happened together to solidify 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.320 these ideas. There's nothing wrong with pink, right, There's nothing 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:25.200 wrong with unicorns, there's nothing wrong with rainbows. The problem 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.960 is that when we mark things as for girls as feminine, 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.560 we automatically say that they're not as good until like, 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:36.400 you grow up and if you're gay and you're like, 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.880 I love unicorns, rainbows and sparkles, and it becomes like 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.240 you reclaim it as a pride. But what happens is 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:49.080 anything that's marked us for girls gets devalued. And so 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:54.320 another really really interesting piece of research I read was 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:58.040 about how these girls who go through the really intense 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:02.320 princess phase sometimes between the ages of three and six, 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.960 and they only want to wear pink, and they're really 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.960 like trying to perfect the stereotype and archetype of a girl. 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.680 And then they turned six, between six and eight, they 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.200 start saying, I hate pink, I hate princesses, and they 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.400 go through a kind of tomboyish phase. What I learned 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.280 from the psychologist doing this research of what they called 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.200 the PFD or pink frilly dressed to tomboy phase, is 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:33.320 that these girls are not just rejecting pink and pink 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.720 frilly dresses because they realize they're still a girl whatever 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.840 they wear, but because they realized that the world looks 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:44.480 down on that stuff, so they start pushing that stuff away. 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.200 Um and people think, oh, yeah, the princess phase is over, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.080 but it's actually not something to celebrate because they've actually, 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:57.160 basically by age six, they've internalized all kinds of sexism. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.440 So in our house, you know, everybody wears pink. My 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.720 husband wears pink, my super my super masculine daughter wears pink. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.600 My super feminine daughter wears pink. Rainbows are for everyone, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.360 barscles are for everyone, Unicorns are for everyone, and nothing 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.920 is off limits because it's marked for one sex or another. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.240 We're just not doing it here. This is like a 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.160 a safe zone for colors activities. No one's gonna say 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:24.840 I won't do that because it's for boys, or I 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.920 won't do that because it's for girls. Yeah, like you 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.360 can't play with that truck or whatever. Like when you 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.840 were setting up nurseries, I'm not sure if you did that. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.800 Were you super conscious about what colors went in there, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.040 what toys like, was that a mission for you or 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.640 were you sort of like, that's not a battle I'm 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:44.480 fighting right now, And it didn't turn into it until 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.520 you had your daughter, and we're actually experiencing her taking 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.280 the lead on this stuff. So I think when I 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.160 had my first kid, I was doing what I thought 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.840 was gender neutral, which I revised since because For me, 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.960 gender neutral just means you ring everything. Everything's on the 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.880 tape everything, there's paint, there's blue, and there's everything else. 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.280 But um, I also got tons and tons of hand 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.359 me downs, and I didn't know what I was having. 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.600 So I kept the girl things that I liked and 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.920 that and the boy things I liked. But I wasn't 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:23.119 asking myself where did I get this idea of what's 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.520 girl stuff and boy stuff? And when all the kids 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.800 were segregating by sex and my kid went in the 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.760 middle of them, and I was like, what what is happening? 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:36.640 I still didn't ask myself, where did my ex Why 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.399 do I have all these expectations for her based on 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:45.000 her body parts? Like so she she came out female, 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.960 and then I had all of these ideas of who 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.840 she was going to be. Even though I was raised 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:56.640 hardcore feminist. My family is filled with, you know, lesbians, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.119 like like they are all kinds of people not conforming 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.720 to gender in all kinds of ways, and yet I'd 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.520 kind of fallen into this trap of having sex based expectations. 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.480 So what this book allowed me to do? What's question 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.879 all of my own assumptions that I didn't even know 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.040 I had because I assumed, as like a lefty and 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.000 an educated person that I feel the same way. Like 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.120 I I'm like, oh, I'm fine. I have so many 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.680 friends that dressed differently and don't conform and love who 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.520 they love and you know where what they wear. And 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:36.760 I found myself with my son like he's being raised 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:41.160 by two musical theater actors and all he wants his trucks. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.000 And I was stuck and disappointed as that, I mean, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:46.919 I went a little bit the other way, Like I 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.040 just was like, are we really going to an l 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.880 A Sanitation department party to look at garbage? Like we're 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.600 going to look at garbage trucks? Because I just want 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.880 to do the things that he's leading that bring him. 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.840 He's three, right, Yeah, So most people, I sure did 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.400 not understand how kids learned about gender, And neither did 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.800 like my pediatrician or any of the grown ups in 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.520 my kid's life. And we didn't understand that at age three, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.399 the great bulk of children don't know the difference between 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.879 gender stereotypes and sex. The ones who are interested in 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.680 like perfecting being a boy or being a girl. I mean, 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.000 and this actually applies to some trans kids too, right, 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.000 they want to prove their membership in the group, and 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.240 they know what the rules of membership are, so they 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.920 know that trucks are part of the membership. And and 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:40.679 for girls, you know, that's why they go through that 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.600 princess space. It's all about belonging, yes, And and we 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.199 often think that it's like the the trucks or the 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.920 pink dresses are what the bogy biological needs are about, Like, oh, 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.840 there must be an evolutionary reason that girls love pink, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:03.040 that isn't it. The evolutionary impetus behind those behaviors is 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.360 the human need to belong exactly as you're saying. It's like, oh, 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.760 this is I've been told that this is my group, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.560 and so I'm going to do everything I can't to 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.640 master that group. And then it opens up these questions 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:19.000 about kids like mine who why didn't she conformed? Why 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.000 didn't she need to master the group the group rules. 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.480 Eventually I was like, Oh, I guess it doesn't matter. 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.320 I guess it's a wonderful thing to be celebrated because 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.560 she's not internalizing all of those gender stereotypes, and so 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:34.440 I don't have to do all this work to pull 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.320 her away from the gender stereotypes because she's living in 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.159 this like limital space of freedom naturally, hallelujah. But then 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.480 I had a second one. Then I had a second one, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.439 and that was completely different, right, completely different, totally different. 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.600 I keep getting reminded. We had Glenn and Doyle on 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.320 the podcast and her kids or teenagers, and she was 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.440 saying in the teenage land, which I haven't faced that yet, 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:02.280 I'm horrifying, but but that it's amazing to see even 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.840 in her bathroom. The words that are used on her 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:10.640 son's deodorants and things like that versus her daughters, like 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.840 the sun's will are red, white and blue, and the 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:18.240 words that are very active, you know, like let's acts 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.639 are body odor and killing, you know, whatever it is. 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.719 It's very conquering. And then the female one or like 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.920 soft colors and very like sensual and words that are 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.520 soft and like you know, and she's like even that, 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.640 it's crazy. Yeah. And the boys are like you can 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.240 smell like wood or nature like outdoors, and then I 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:45.399 don't know, the girls are jasmine, floral, lavender, vanilla, vanilla. Yeah. Um, 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:50.240 what is your opinion of gender reveal parties? Oh? The 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.880 gender it's it's such a isn't it such a funny thing? 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.480 And just all the disasters that it's led to. Oh 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.920 my god, it just leads to fires, people getting hurt 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:09.120 and like, I mean, this is a new thing. Yeah yeah, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:13.440 I mean as someone who's been studying gender really intensively 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.280 for a couple of years, you know, what are the 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:19.439 frustrating things for me about the whole discussion is that 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.160 most of us don't know what gender means. I mean, 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.160 and not only that it means different things to different people. 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.520 So we have these crazy culture wars that are really 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:33.960 about people having different definitions of the same word, competing 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:37.679 definitions that do different things. Gender means all of the 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.760 expectations and the stereotypes, all of the ideas we have 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:46.640 about people based on their sex. Then very often gender 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.119 is used as a synonym for sex. So in a 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.879 gender reveal party there actually it's really a genital reveal party. 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.480 That's what you're you're actually because that's all you know, 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:02.199 you know, even they're identifying as and you don't know 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.439 what they know they have a vagina, yeah, and you 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:07.439 don't know what they're gonna be. Like it doesn't you 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:10.439 get an idea of this kid's gonna be sweet. This 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:12.680 kid's gonna be you know, stay home and take care 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.280 of the parents. This kid's gonna marry a nice boy. 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.280 Your sex as a predictor of how how people will 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.439 treat you and interact with you, but it's not a 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:24.760 predictor of who you're going to become. Whatever we're celebrating 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:29.360 when we have a gender revealed party, which is our expectations, 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:34.240 our stereotypes, the ideas that we've imposed onto kids because 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:39.480 of their bodies. That's right. I opened up the email 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:44.200 saying I was having a girl. Yeah, and I sobbed 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:47.399 cheers of joy. Um. I've always wanted to be a 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:52.840 mother to a daughter, and um, whatever she's into, Like, 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:55.159 I don't care if she's a tomboy or whatever. Like 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.640 I just am really fascinated by a mother daughter relationship 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:01.720 and really wanted to experiences that in my life. But 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:05.439 I have to say, my son is a very physical player, 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:07.800 and already we're like, well, we're so happy we're having 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:10.560 a girl because he's going to learn empathy and compassion 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:14.119 and be soft with her. She might not be those things, 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:18.440 like you know, you know, that's the type of st 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:23.040 kids are. Wrestlers. I mean, and why I mean. I 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:25.640 think what people often say is if you have one 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:28.639 or two kids and you have ideas about gender, that 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:32.160 a lot of times those kids will cement those ideas 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:34.320 and they'll play into it, and you'll say, oh, yeah, 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:36.960 it is girls are like this. And but when you 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:39.600 ask people who have lots of kids, they end up 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:44.119 realizing like, oh, we can't just attribute everything to sex 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.000 or gender the way we we thought we could. I 0:24:47.040 --> 0:24:50.520 think it becomes very overwhelming when the veil is lifted 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:55.240 and you see how you're participating in these ideas. Um. 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:57.640 I think what's happened for us is we've trained our 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:00.840 kids in it so much that they call us on 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:05.080