Parenting a boy is a feminist minefield!

[MadameBoolala]

I am a feminist.

I have one child, a 4 year old boy, and mainly post in conception as we have been ttc number 2 for 2 years without success now. However I am venturing onto these boards as I feel negatively judged today by someone, and my parenting is being called into question.

I won't have time to post again until I come back from work tonight- but I'm wondering aloud today if it's easier to be a feminist and a parent of a girl...

I don't worry about this. I focus on meeting my son's needs promoting empathy so that (hopefully) I 'fill his cup' and he is able to be compassionate to & gentle with others. I think that assertive behaviour comes naturally and effectively from adults with a secure sense of self - usually they've been nurtured well through childhood. And where it's less natural (I count myself here, I'm not criticising) is where it can get out of balance/be problematic.

Also I think it takes a while to learn the 'volume control' on this and other social interactions, so that children can go through phases of asserting themselves too little/too much, and it's important to help them gently through these phases.

and promoting empathy

I have only read a very small proportion of this thread so far. I have 7 wk DS and 4yr Old DD.

I think that if your boys take their cues from the grown men & women around them and that those grown men and women make an effort to reinforce positive gender messages then you don't need to worry too much.

I think the difficulty fishandlilacs is there are so many factors that are out of a parent's control when it comes to reinforcing positive gender messages. Peer pressure is one of the biggest and has been shown to have the strongest influence on girls' and boys' perception of themselves and others. And there's the media. Even if you don't have a TV at home or you don't allow unrestricted viewing, the influence of the media is very pervasive in all sorts of ways - comics, newspapers, advertising posters, marketing in shops etc. etc.

But I agree that those children who already have a positive sense of self and gender identity will be more resistant to those kinds of influences than those who don't.

Well, do not let your DCs watch the new KFC advert. Man uses up all of woman's milk, lets door close in her face, other mundane tasks. 'Sexy' poseur man in KFC flashes his grilled chicken at her, and rather than confront any of these men, woman eats KFC. On leaving, man lets door go in her face. She shrugs. Stupid cow.

Exactly what IC says. I know plenty of people who say that if they get the right message at home everything will be all right. But it's just not that simple. As soon as they go to school or nursery, they are getting constant messages from the other children as well as staff, and it's next to impossible to stop that, as well as the messages they get from ads, etc. The way other people influence their children has a huge effect on your children, especially when they are all influencing in the same way.

I have a DS and I think the best way (as with all kids) is too lead by example e.g. equality in the home my ds often sees my my OH cooking and cleaning.

You can say all the right thing until your blue, but if your running round wiping a mans arse all the time thats what will sink in, you learn what you live.

SaF I get exactly what you're saying about things that you'd praise in a girl (assertiveness) can be something you don't want to overdo in a boy (expectation that world will listen to him! -> Experience proving this to be true! -> Wow, being heard is easy, what are women on about? etc).

I think it boils down to the fact that with a son, I know the world is set up for him, from his point of view. If I'd had a daughter I would have been able to teach her what I've learned about dealing with a world that thinks of you as a second class citizen. But as I have a son I have to teach him to see that the world is unfairly biased in his favour (as long as he behaves a certain way) and to resist the pressure to behave that way, basically.

I didn't pick up on it last time I read back but Posie articulated a real fear I've heard from other mothers: I worry that if I raise a respectful, gentle, feminist son other, lesser men will treat him badly.
I'm afraid of that too. Obviously, I'm a relatively new mother so I'm afraid of anything and everything hurting DS, but it really does bother me that if I raise him 'right' he may be mocked/sneered at/ thought less of by some. . . But not so afraid that I won't do it. After all, I am married to a respectful, gentle, feminist husband and he made it to his thirties without too many scars - so it's got to be do-able!

Yes I think that's a massive fear isn't it - that if you don't brutalise your son early, all the other little brutalised boys in reception class, will beat him up and bully him.

It is actually a perfectly valid fear. And that's where the ethos in schools is so important - we really need them to recognise that the messages boys are getting from in many cases, their homes and wider society, need to be counteracted by the school so that they find that society works differently from their home, if those awful brutalisation messages are what they are getting at home.

one point tho, yes when they are older the world is biased in their favour (boys) BUT as a child i think that actually its the other way round, a lot of the qualities/traits that some girls have ie the fact that some are quieter or more able to sit for longer periods to learn to draw and read etc means that in the school system especially boys are at a disadvantage.

i think studies show that girls learn fine motor skills at an earlier age and boys learn gross motor skill earlier, not sure why tho! but this does predispose girls to find school 'easier' and get on better, boys do catch up and it still depends on the individual child, my aug born ds1 one of the youngest in his yr, is actually veyr bright and has always been fine at school (we did home school til he was 9yr old tho he was NOT ready for school 2wks after his 4th bday!

i am not sure at what point it changes, is it entering the workforce? or at college/uni?

It seems that boys and girls practice the respective motor skills more before they get to school either because they are more drawn to certain activities that involve using fine/gross motor skills or they are encouraged/pressured towards those activities - or most likely, some combination of the two. That's why girls often do better with fine motor skills when they do with gross motor skills by primary school age and vice versa with boys. Each will likely have spent more time honing those skills.

Boys' systems mature slightly slower than girls too - but only by a single month and that is an average, so loads of boys mature faster than the average girl and plenty of girls mature slower than the average boy. (The really noticeable difference is in the womb - preterm girls have much better survival rates than preterm boys because they have that slight edge).

So yes, assuming that fine motor skills and exercising the inhibitory function (ability to sit still and focus for long-ish periods of time) become very important in modern schooling from an early age, girls may often have the advantage over their male peers because they've often had more practice.

yes its probably partly a genetic thing and probably partly what is encouraged, we have always done lots of crafty/arty stuff etc, probably as we home schooled? or that i just enjoy doing it so my boys havent had an issue with this really, but htey def learnt to read slightly later than all the girls their age, but when they did 'get it' they flew and were then ahead with in a matter of months.

i had heard the same re premature babies, that girls do better.

so in the academic system girls find it easier, or can do and this shows in exam results at gcse/a level girls consistently doing better than boys, dont know about degree results? is there an even mix of the sexes going to uni nowadays or is it still more boys? it must be around this time that the balance of power shifts as the workforce is male orientated, the school is a peculiar 'bubble' in the respect that there are more females in the workforce and that girls do better than boys. but then school is an odd 'bubble' anyway!

The whole business of girls' versus boys' attainment at school is a bit of a puzzle, really.

If anything, schooling styles have become less biased towards the "sit still, practice your writing, memorise everything...." over the last 30 years or so, so in theory, boys should benefit from that. But it's over the last 30 years or so that the attainment gap has tipped towards girls (it used to be that boys were always the higher achievers) and continued to widen in their favour.

So, what's causing the disparity?

One theory is that a lot of it is down to expectations. More and more, girls are expected to do better at school than boys, so they do. It's an example of stereotype lift. The positive reinforcement of girls academic abilities in school bolsters them up.

Meanwhile, boys get the opposite - they're now expected to do worse, so they do. It's stereotype threat, if you like.

Also, as high achievement during the school years becomes a largely female characteristic, guess what? It becomes devalued in the eyes of young males, as most "feminine" attributes are. So they're even less motivated to do well.

I think you'll find that higher up in secondary school, maths and science results still tend to be a bit higher overall for boys than girls (I'd need to double check that still holds true) and there you find the opposite situation: girls are stereotyped as being less able at maths/sciences (better at English/modern languages) and boys are stereotyped as being superior in these areas, so they are. Stereotype threat and stereotype lift again.

Plus there are still pervasive images of maths/science/technology being a haven for geeks etc. which has been shown to be massively unappealing to most girls (in the way being a "swot" is seen as being girly for the boys) so that's another off-putting aspect.

Thing is, girls have proved that one disadvantaged gender can massively catch up with the other, so the same must be true of boys. Question is, how to do it?

If the UK state education system now allows girls to achieve at least as highly as boys, is it now 'fixed'? All anybody wants is a level playing field, right?

I've been lurking on this thread as I have 2 young boys and haven't been able to articulate in my mind what worries me about them growing up and how to teach them. Posie, saf and blackcurrants have helped in that respect.

How I teach them to be empathetic, gentle men, aware of their privelege is another matter .

Sorry Sanjeev I don't really understand what you're asking. "Fixed" in the sense that there can be no more change, or "fixed" in the sense that the education is now purposely set up to "allow" girls to achieve at least as highly as boys (which is incorrect in any case, as currently girls in general are achieving more highly than boys)...?

its not the sitting still, memorise everything that is a problem, its the fact that kids start school at FOUR years old that is the problem, my eldest two were def not ready for school then, so we home schooled but i know of summer born boys who did start and just floundered in rec-yr 2 and then as they were starting to get the hang of things they were already becoming disilluisioned and put of school. i guess the same could well happen to girls, but of the kids i know of, its all boys this happens to.

the fact that we start them so young and try to get them to learn to read/wrtie etc at this age does (so studies say and from my experience) disadvantage boys from the get go and if you are put off school at a young age its very hard to then go on to enjoy it.

Immaculada, feminism seems to be about creating a level playing field in all aspects of society between men and women, so that all have the chance to achieve the same in any given field. It now appears that the UK education system allows girls to achieve more than boys. If pay equality was as advanced as education, women would be earning more than men.

What I am (clumsily) trying to ask is are feminists now happy that the UK state education system meets their requirements for a non-sexist environment?

I agree that it is probably more about starting them too young at school and putting them off forever as well.

What would you do to the education system to ensure that girls don't do better than boys Sanjeev?

Well, okay then - don't answer my question

I am looking for figures beyond GCSE, and not having much luck. I have found a worldwide report from 2003 that says 'Women have overtaken men at every level of education in developed countries around the world'.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3110594.stm

Is this still the case?

Basil, perhaps nothing should be done. I have a gut feeling that to give girls a leg up like this might be the boost they need to ensure that, longer term, equality in other walks of life can be achieved.

Aren't you a feminist Sanjeev? Don't you know the answer to your question?

No I don't know the answer. That is why I asked. Plus, I am interested in the opinion of others.

So you're not a feminist then?

Yes I am.

And I still don't know what anyone else thinks.