Biological Gender Politics
A Toronto couple has indicated to their friends and family that they are in the process of completing an experiment they began with their first two children, extending and finalizing the experiment with the birth of their third child. This couple, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, decided between them that they would not burden their young children with the understanding that they represent a gender. The idea being, one supposes, that the children, as they mature, will somehow decide for themselves which gender their body and their psychological orientation represents.
This open-minded couple is simply reprising a situation on another level, that some parents engage in, by not indoctrinating their children into any recognized religion, eschewing such identity for themselves and feeling that when their children are old enough to make their own decisions about such things, they will. Something like the latest engagement on the circumcision question that recently surfaced in the U.S.; to forgo infant circumcision and to allow instead, a teen-age boy to decide whether the avoidance of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is worth the sacrifice of a foreskin.
The couple is obviously possessed of a yearning to be 'different' than their peers. More authentic, bold and imaginative. Readily enough distinguished in their selection of first names for their offspring. The first two , 5 and 2, have been named Jazz and Kio, respectively, both male. The newborn's gender is unknown, not to be divulged, lest the child somehow be put on the wrong identity track; and its name is Storm. First names that are sufficiently 'different' to distinguish these children from their peers.
They are, however, already distinguished as being different from their peers. For most children undergo a subconscious patterning; boys somehow take their fathers as their guides, and girls their mothers; subtle indoctrination into the mysteries of biological identity. This is, after all, the role of parents, to guide their children through life, and one of the guideposts is to help them understand their gender; not gender roles, particularly.
Obviously, there are some girls who prefer boys' activities, and some boys who find traditional girls' activities attractive to them. There will always be personality differences and preferences; some boys are total klutzes as handymen, whereas some girls take to hammer-and-tong naturally. Which still does not differentiate them as this set of parents appear set to separate their three youngsters from the rest of society by abrogating their parental role.
The two young boys who are the older of the three children were given free rein by their parents to do as they wished, without being geared as is often done, to do 'boy' things. They could dress as they pleased and comport themselves in a manner that seemed to appeal to them. Nail polish and braids and pink clothing appears to appeal to the 5-year-old. Setting that child up for future problems with his school peers, as though the names weren't sufficient provocation.
Moreover, the five and two-year-old have been schooled not to divulge to anyone the gender of their new brother-or-sister. Practising to deceive. Depriving the two boys first of their firm gender identity by declining to give them the opportunity to see whether being a male feels comfortable, by emulating their father. Leaving the children with a clear bias against the firm acceptance of the biological attributes they were born with.
And leaving the parents free to feel themselves justified to play confusing psychological games with the minds of their children. Ensuring they will likely never feel fully confident with whatever gender identity they eventually end up with. It is as though these two parents are so egotistically involved with themselves that they will not conceive of a time in their children's lives when their confused identity will cause them the anguish of both rejection and failure.
Obviously, the parents are self-involved with their noble experiment to 'prove' something to the world that will in the end, prove nothing to their little experiments-grown-to-maturity who may bemoan their ill fortune in having been switched at the hospital nursery from their real parents to these pseudo-parents who have managed to confuse their lives in the process of a self-reverential choreography.
Which leaves the burning question: what of the parents' self-identity as per their genders? They must somehow have arrived at the distinction of male and female and practised the ritual of mating to produce their offspring. What, otherwise, is their role-playing as male and female in their intimate home relationship that their children cannot emulate? Is Daddy a cross-dresser and Mummy a balls-breaker?
Is their rude and crude reality the basis for manipulating their children and calling it free choice? Should they be charged with child neglect, and abandonment of their parental roles in raising well-adjusted children?
This open-minded couple is simply reprising a situation on another level, that some parents engage in, by not indoctrinating their children into any recognized religion, eschewing such identity for themselves and feeling that when their children are old enough to make their own decisions about such things, they will. Something like the latest engagement on the circumcision question that recently surfaced in the U.S.; to forgo infant circumcision and to allow instead, a teen-age boy to decide whether the avoidance of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is worth the sacrifice of a foreskin.
The couple is obviously possessed of a yearning to be 'different' than their peers. More authentic, bold and imaginative. Readily enough distinguished in their selection of first names for their offspring. The first two , 5 and 2, have been named Jazz and Kio, respectively, both male. The newborn's gender is unknown, not to be divulged, lest the child somehow be put on the wrong identity track; and its name is Storm. First names that are sufficiently 'different' to distinguish these children from their peers.
They are, however, already distinguished as being different from their peers. For most children undergo a subconscious patterning; boys somehow take their fathers as their guides, and girls their mothers; subtle indoctrination into the mysteries of biological identity. This is, after all, the role of parents, to guide their children through life, and one of the guideposts is to help them understand their gender; not gender roles, particularly.
Obviously, there are some girls who prefer boys' activities, and some boys who find traditional girls' activities attractive to them. There will always be personality differences and preferences; some boys are total klutzes as handymen, whereas some girls take to hammer-and-tong naturally. Which still does not differentiate them as this set of parents appear set to separate their three youngsters from the rest of society by abrogating their parental role.
The two young boys who are the older of the three children were given free rein by their parents to do as they wished, without being geared as is often done, to do 'boy' things. They could dress as they pleased and comport themselves in a manner that seemed to appeal to them. Nail polish and braids and pink clothing appears to appeal to the 5-year-old. Setting that child up for future problems with his school peers, as though the names weren't sufficient provocation.
Moreover, the five and two-year-old have been schooled not to divulge to anyone the gender of their new brother-or-sister. Practising to deceive. Depriving the two boys first of their firm gender identity by declining to give them the opportunity to see whether being a male feels comfortable, by emulating their father. Leaving the children with a clear bias against the firm acceptance of the biological attributes they were born with.
And leaving the parents free to feel themselves justified to play confusing psychological games with the minds of their children. Ensuring they will likely never feel fully confident with whatever gender identity they eventually end up with. It is as though these two parents are so egotistically involved with themselves that they will not conceive of a time in their children's lives when their confused identity will cause them the anguish of both rejection and failure.
Obviously, the parents are self-involved with their noble experiment to 'prove' something to the world that will in the end, prove nothing to their little experiments-grown-to-maturity who may bemoan their ill fortune in having been switched at the hospital nursery from their real parents to these pseudo-parents who have managed to confuse their lives in the process of a self-reverential choreography.
Which leaves the burning question: what of the parents' self-identity as per their genders? They must somehow have arrived at the distinction of male and female and practised the ritual of mating to produce their offspring. What, otherwise, is their role-playing as male and female in their intimate home relationship that their children cannot emulate? Is Daddy a cross-dresser and Mummy a balls-breaker?
Is their rude and crude reality the basis for manipulating their children and calling it free choice? Should they be charged with child neglect, and abandonment of their parental roles in raising well-adjusted children?
Labels: Life's Like That, Sexism, Society
posted by Pieface | 9:06 AM
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