One of the biggest surprises I've had as a mother is learning first hand about sexism from interactions with people who would self-describe as liberals, in this strongly progressive region. I've always felt instinctively aligned with feminism (pro-life, of course), but the previous origin of my instincts was social justice, understanding that inequities exist and that they should be corrected, but not actually feeling strong recognized experience with them.
Having children changed that. At first it was amusing and minor - observers surprised on days when I chose to wrap my newborn in cozy blue hand-me-down wraps or dressed her in an adorable blue onesie that I selected becuase it had on it an image of a puppy that looked like ours. When people apologized profusely for thinking she was a baby boy, I thought, "she's a newborn; who cares?"
As my oldest daughter reached Kindergarten, the experience of sexism came home in a way that was less trivial and simple to dismiss because it was so very hurtful to her; this woke me up to a different reality. By chance, her best friends at that age were boys and when they started school, their behavior toward her changed markedly, excluding her specifically because of her gender. (By luck or design, I have never seen this behavior exist in the homeschool community.) She hadn't changed, but they had learned that they should treat girls differently. Oddest to me was how vociferously their moms supported behavior that was not only hurtful, but often blatantly rude. One of her friends stopped speaking to her at all and wouldn't even return her greeting; his mom gave him unapologetic support with explanations that made so little sense to me that I can't now even recall them.
My reflections about the differences between boys and girls are anecdotal and I recognize them as such. Each of my daughters is an individual and they have very different personalities, each crossing the boundaries of gender expectations in different ways. I want them to have this freedom, to be uniquely themselves, and am always surprised by criticism or broad statements from others that begin with some version of "all boys are..." or "all girls do...," which often come across as justifications for rudeness or exclusion and are based on inherently limited anecdotal experiences but confidently stated more broadly.
I took the photos below as my amused observation of gender play that crosses expectations. Both kids play often with their PlayMobil characters, which include a house, Nativity scene, veterinarian's office, spy car, rural Egypt, skateboard track, and a fairy castle. On this occasion, they were playing with a race car track, a new Christmas gift. I was gratified at their enthusiasm, knowing that this toy is one that is often associated exclusively with boys. I watched with amusement as they then combined gender expectations in their own unique approach to their creative play, lining up the doll house characters to watch the cars race, part of an elaborate shared narrative. This play, with stereotypically gender-specific toys happily combined in imaginative play, gave me a moment of needed hope.
