Unhappy dad seeking feminist advice

[UnimaginitiveDadThemedUsername]

"We're princesses. We like dressing up and shopping."

Had a friend's daughter stay over this Saturday with our DD (both 3 1/2), and this is what we heard for most of the day from the two of them. This is pretty much the straw that is breaking the camel's back (even more so than the pink toy washing machine given to us by my mother-in-law when I wasn't there).

My question is this - how hard am I going to have to fight so DD grows up to realise that she is a person in her own right and not someone else's chattel or arm candy? I'm wondering if it's a lost cause.
Ironically, I feel that my efforts are and will continue to be sabotaged by women who know nothing else (see washing machine incident above). I mention stuff in a non-confrontational way to female members of the family and feel like they don't take me seriously.

Any practical suggestions? Or should I stop worrying?

"We're princesses. We like dressing up and shopping."

I think you need to ask yourself, really ask yourself, what is wrong with these activities?

I fear that in trying to eschew misogyny, we inadvertently reinforce it by denigrating pastimes and activities thought of as 'girly' as not worthwhile- or not as worthwhile as whittling an ornament from a piece of wood or some other such traditionally 'boy' activity. There is nothing inherently more worthy in the whittling than the shopping- it is simply held in higher regard due to the fact that it is primarily a male activity. If shopping were primarily a male activity, I think we would be encouraging our daughters to do it.

WRT pink, I think we are in danger of demonising a colour without addressing what it signifies. Banning it reinforces the gender division by accepting the erroneous premise that there are appropriate and inappropriate colours, instead of encouraging children of both genders to choose colours freely without disapproval. It's not about girls not wearing pink, it's about boys wearing it too.

Yama - to be fair, my daughter's rocket looks like it has been crafted in an afternoon by a toddler with two left hands but it makes her happy. Your rocket sounds awesome, don't show me pics or I'll get jealous

tethers YES!

Tethersend, you put it so much more eloquently than me! Totally agree!

The most important thing to remember is, she's watching you now, she's watching you to see how men should treat woman, be sure to show her she can expect to be loved and a true equal.

what tehtersend has said, tho of course if you let your sons wear pink (as i have done) then you are accused of letting them get bullied etc or else projecting yourself on them...

Not necessarily, madthings. When my DS wanted to wear pigtails the other day, I asked him what he would say if other children said he was weird/a girl/etc. He didn't know what he would say, so we practised a few answers:

"There's no rule that boys can't have pigtails"
"If it's good enough for girls then it's good enough for me"
"It's very useful if you've got longer hair, for boys and girls"

And that's exactly what I would say if I got a comment about his pigtails. Unfortunately I didn't

Or perhaps fortunately. Lovely school my son goes to.

hugeheadofhair that is the type of conversatino i have with my boys, well ds3 mainly who went to a party wearing a pink/silver tutu over his jeans last week! he chose it and was happy to wear it, we also went to an nct sale the other wkend and he wore it there. i have said to him what if the other children say stuff to you, call you 'girly' etc he just shrugged and isnt bothered, his fave comback is that david beckham has worn a sarong, so if he can wear a skirt so can i!

but the thread i did on mnet about it was quite interesting! (now deleted) anyway my ds3 is happy to wear more 'girly' dressing up clothes, but equally will wear darth vader, space man etc. they are all just toys in our house, we dont label things as girl/boy toys.

taht should say PURPLE/silver tutu!

and snap my ds3 also goes to a lovely school, so not an issue :)

Our DSs will hopefully grow up to be feminists, madthings! Or at least in touch with their feminine side!

Last word before I go to bed - I'm not too worried about 'pink' in its own right. When DD was telling me that pink is for girls and not for boys one Saturday, I took her to my wardrobe and showed her a pink shirt I have for work and said that boys can wear pink too. I could see her thinking about this at great length, because whilst she still talks about pink she isn't as ready to associate it along gender lines as much as before.

(My comment regarding the colour was in conjunction with this particular toy - I thought it was something from decades back, dragged out of the attic but apparently it's still around. Not happy about the brand name being "Girls Only" either, but that's another matter).

Tbh, Id be more bothered about the fact that is is washing machine than the colour.....so girls are supposed to enjoy laundry are they? You are right, though, the Girls Only sticker is awful.

Ach, just buy a yorkie for your wife.

My DD1 goes to a dance school where they cannot attract boys. She is 14 and it is part of her high school and the boys who have joined in the past have left due to peer pressure and it is because of what is happening to our liittle kids.

My DD2 wants desperately to be a princess. She is 3.5 and she 'loves pink', 'blue is for boys', 'I only like dresses Mummy because trousers are for boys'. It's so hard to prevent kids from buying into it as it is EVERYWHERE. My DD2 is in nursery in a city, short of going to the outer Hebrides, what can I do?

Dunno if I have much to add to this thread other than my whole hearted agreement with Thethersend's 21.15 post.

And for the mother's (and father's) of boys Asda have had some great shocking pink T shirts in the boys section recently

Fizzylaces - My daughter is the same age as your younger daughter and has been in nursery since she was 9 months old. To this day she doesn't differentiate between boys' and girls' toys or clothes (and I occasionally see boys in tutus and other 'girly' costumes in her preschool group as well as girls dressing up in 'boyish' costumes), maybe we're just lucky and her nursery is doing the right thing, but she has only in the past few weeks started to grasp the difference between boys and girls, rather than using the words interchangeably.

We're not in the outer Hebrides, it can be done in an urban setting.

My dd got into the whole crappy pink stuff thing at a similar age and for a few years after too, and I fought against it. I didn't ban the 20 odd barbies that she was given but I made no bones about the fact I thought they were horrible, and would never under any circumstances buy her anything like that (likewise if I thought that 'boys' toys where rubbish too, or glorified violence in a way that I disliked).

If we were watching TV and adverts came on for terrible pink rubbish 'for girls' I said that I thought they were terrible and why (badly made, poor play value as well as pink sparkliness). When we went to bookshops I told both children that there were some books I wouldn't buy, and that under no circumstance would pink sparkly rubbish be coming home with us. I did say that if they had their own money (gifts etc) then they were of course free to buy whatever they chose.

When dd wanted to be a princess I asked her what rules she would make for her subjects and talked about what a real princess might do (and when she was older about what a difficult life a princess might have). I would have attempted to disabuse my dd from thinking that being a princess was just about dressing up and shopping, or that such a life was in any way interesting in any case (I would probably have done my best to be subversive and suggested that her kingdom was being threatened by dragons or something more interesting than shopping or pretty dresses). However princessing tended to be a fairly small part of her imaginative repertoire and I think that's all that matters. I've always been very keen on expanding both my children's horizons. Sometimes they got quite stroppy about it, and I think that's great too to be honest. Practice fighting your corner in your own family and you'll be better at in in the real world

I'm sure that some people will think that I've been terribly pushy about my own agenda, and I'd agree, but dd is now 11 and does think that the world is there for her to go out, enjoy, conquer and change and I am very proud of her. They both know that people should be thought of as individuals first and everything else is secondary, whether their gender, race, sexual orientation, interests etc may be.

leave them be fgs, they are babies

just because they like pink and fluff and princesses now doesn't mean they will turn into Jordan as adults

unimaginative dad - I don't really get your point?

You say that "With regards to the comments about forcing her one way or the other, we are doing no such thing." and that she already has Lego to play with as well as the usual girly toys. So what's your problem?

If your partner is supportive of encouraging non-gender play and your MIL just goes for pink stereotypical toys, this does not mean that your dd will grow up to be a kept woman.

Or are you upset by her liking of pink and all things princessy and you want to change that?

Your concern about her dressing up as a princess with her friend is a concern for me tbh. You say you are not forcing her one way or the other, yet you seem to blame the way your daughter is at the age of 3, on a few sexist toys she has against all the other non-gender toys you've bought her.

If she grows up wanting to be girly and ultra feminine will you be disappointed? If she wants to be a hairdresser what will your reaction be? Because feminism is about empowering women to be who they want to be, not preventing them from fulfilling a stereotype if that's what they want. We need hairdressers and beauty therapists - there is a demand for that. Not every child will grow up wanting to change the world and become a lawyer or doctor.

I'm glad that you are embracing feminism and that you are teaching your daughter about gender equality. It means that as your daughter grows up, the path she chooses will not be dictated to her by society or by the toys she had, but will be a personal choice and it's your job to accept that choice even if you disagree with it.

Hello again all.

A couple of you have made similar points, which all seem to be covered in TheRhubarb's 09:27 post. I'll use this to answer some of the questions put my way (but my responses are not to be taken as a direct response or confrontation of that poster).

My overall concern is that no matter what we do at home, society shapes how we treat people of different genders. I see this already when I take DD to nursery in the morning and see how the staff interact with girls and boys. Girls are routinely complemented on their appearance - boys aren't. Yesterday, one of the staff members immediately spotted that DD had new shoes and made positive remarks about them. I would put good money on the fact that this wouldn't happen for boys.

So what's the message here? To me, the message is that the most important thing is how a female looks. Style over substance.

If DD grows up wanting to be "girly and ultra feminine" I won't necessarily be disappointed - I just happen to think that this stuff is icing on the cake. I'm reminded of the song 'Independent Woman' by Destiny's Child - the chorus talks abour the things that make a woman look good but the continual refrain is about how she put them there herself ("The shoes on my feet - I bought it... 'cos I depend on me"). Looking the best you can is important, but still secondary to function, and I think it applies everywhere, from the food on our plates to the cars that we drive to ourselves as human beings. Some commenters last night seemed to class appearance as important solely because it's a predominantly female interest. I wholeheartedly disagree with that - in fact, I believe that thinking along those lines encourages parallel societies that we wouldn't want to tolerate if we were talking about race as opposed to gender. Obviously, some people here disagree with me from what I read last night - we'll just have to agree to disagree (I'm not here for a flame war).

If DD grows up and wants to become a hairdresser then yes, I will be disapponted - but in exactly the same way as if a son wants to sweep roads for a living. The disappointment comes in not seeing someone fulfil potential, and what worries me is that I think society still to some extent allows and/or encourages women to settle for less. I know someone may be tempted to have a pop at me about judging hairdressers and street sweepers, but let me try and give a real example of my thought process - one of the items in DD's dressing-up box is a nurse's outfit. Nursing is a very important job and not necessarily gender specific - I have a male friend who is a senior ICU nurse - but seeing the nurse's outfit appear immediately made me think "why did she recieve a nurse's outfit and not a doctor's?". Call me judgemental if you wish, but I think that Rosalind Franklyn is more important than (picks a name out of thin air) Amy Childs or any other woman who appears on a till-side magazine rack. But DD is already picking up on these subliminal messages and she hasn't even started school yet. DW and I can only do so much in the time we have.

Anyway, I just came here to ask about what we can do about this, and I did get a few good hints and tips for which I'm grateful. Further to which, I'm thinking of us visiting the National Space Centre up in Leicester this weekend - and maybe tell DD about Valentina Tereshkova?

You really are thinking way too much about this!
There are women who came from much more misogynistic backgrounds than our children and yet have gone on to do well. A lot of it depends on who you are as a person and that's where the nature verus nurture debate comes in.

I dispute that at nursery boys are never complimented on their looks. My ds was always complimented on his fair curly hair but I get your point about looks being more important for women than for men and nowhere is this point made more succintly than in the media.

By all means, ensure she has plenty of female role models around, buy her a tool kit, get her a pirate's outfit to go in her dressing up box but do ensure that you accept her for who she is. She is just 3 years old and probably doesn't understand or care about Valentina Tereshkova, she'll just want to know when she gets her ice-cream.

You cannot stop these subliminal messages unless you lock her in a room and keep her away from society. Plenty of kids are also surrounded by the very same messages and yet if you ask on Mumsnet you will find little boys who wear pink and are into ballet and dolls and little girls who love climbing trees and are interested in science. So it doesn't have to affect the way our children see themselves. My main concern is that you are blaming these subliminal messages for your dd's development when in fact it sounds like her personality is simply quite feminine and that could be why she is embracing these pink toys and dressing up clothes, not because the adverts have brainwashed her but because she just likes them.

There is Bot All wrong with being a hairdresser or a road sweep. At three, you can hardly forsee what her potential is. What if she has a skill for hairdressing, styling and colouring and uses it to rise to the ranks of Creative Director of her own company? I was on your side til I read that.

I fear that your DD will be pushed, by you, into a peg of which she is the wrong shape.

My DD aged 5 had always been a pink sparkly princess. Yesterday in the shoe shop she suddenly announced that she doesn't like pink, saying "its not really for me" and that she'd rather have some light blue or purple shoes.

Given all the choices our children can all decide what they would like to be. As long as the main message she gets from home is that it doesn't matter whether she wants to play cooking, shopping, shooting or pillaging, she'll be ok!

Yes 'society' and 'the media' all have their influences but its up to us as parents to try and counter those harmful influences with common sense, which you are already doing. Chill!

Oh and DD dresses as a doctor, a power ranger, a soldier and jar jar Binks, as well as a princess and a fairy.