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| Subject: Why All Boys Need to be Petticoated | |
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Author: Julie Wilson |
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Date Posted: 10:49:57 04/29/16 Fri Boys begin to develop their contempt for the opposite sex at an early age. Certain aspects of this process have been documented in"Boys and Girls: Superheroes in the Doll Corner" by Vivian Gussin Paley, a vivid account of relations between the sexes in one kindergarten class. Kindergarten, it turns out, is a crucial time in which the boys separate themselves from the girls and define themselves as the opposite of female. The mother of Charlotte, one of the girls in the class, tells Paley: "They used to play so nicely in the doll corner, in nursery school, the boys and girls together. Now Charlotte tells me the boys are always fighting." Paley herself observes: "Like Charlotte's mother, the girls remember when boys were more at ease in female surroundings." According to Paley, this process of separation first began at the age of four: "The four-year-old boy is less comfortable in the doll corner than he was the year before; he may occasionally dress up in women's clothes or agree to be Daddy, but the superhero clique has formed and the doll corner is becoming a women's room." The process is then completed by the age of five or six: "A boy in a frilly bedjacket expects to be laughed at," whereas only a year or two earlier that same boy would have had no qualms about wearing feminine clothing. Boys separate themselves from girls because they are taught that they are superior to girls. They pick up this attitude from their fathers and from older boys. This is why it is the boys who form a clique that excludes the girls long before the girls develop any clique of their own: "Boys set the tone and girls follow on parallel paths." Boys achieve their separate identity by defining themselves as what girls are not: "'Here's what I think,' Charlotte states definitively. 'They don't want to be fancy because girls do. They just like to be not the same as us.'" The boys who adhere to this male supremacist separation from femininity then pressure the remaining boys to fall into line. The children in Paley's class take turns telling stories. Here is Teddy's first story: "Once upon a time there was this little boy and his name was Pretty. They called him Pretty because he was so pretty. His name was really Hansel. There was this sister. He didn't know he had a sister. The mother and father told him and then they had candy and then they went for a walk." Paley relates that the response of the other boys was "immediate and strong": Andrew, Jonathan, and Paul explode with laughter. "He calls him Pretty!" "Ugh!" "Pre-e-tty!" "He can call him that if he wants," Charlotte says. "No he can't!" shouts Andrew. "Not if he's a boy he can't." "It's Teddy's story," I add. "He didn't tell you what to say." Teddy is not insulted, only curious. He smiles at the boys, who continue to make faces. Teddy's use of "pretty" crosses over into female territory, a subject he will learn about from boys, who care more about boundary lines than do the girls. The boys care more about boundary lines than do the girls because the myths of male superiority are dependent on them. Boys must define themselves as different from girls before they can define themselves as superior. If girls are good, then boys feel that they must be something other than good, just as they must be something other than fancy or pretty: "The children see girls as good and find it difficult to characterize boys": Karen: Girls are nicer than boys. Janie: Boys are bad. Some boys are. Paul: Not bad. Pretend bad, like bad guys. Karen: My brother is really bad. Teacher: Aren't girls ever bad? Paul: I don't think so. Not very much. Teacher: Why not? Paul: Because they like to color so much. That's one thing I know. Boys have to practice running. Karen: And they practice being silly. This same flight from the feminine came up again in connection with the doll known as Strawberry Shortcake: Andrew: All the girls love Strawberry Shortcake now. Teacher: I wonder why that is. Andrew: They think she has a nice smell. Teacher: Do you like that smell? Andrew: Boys don't like smells. Teacher: Don't like smells? Andrew: I mean boys like bad smells. I mean dangerous smells. Like volcano smells. Jonathan: Vampire smells. Teacher: Well, Strawberry Shortcake doesn't have to worry about volcanoes or vampires. The girls never put those things in their stories. Teddy: Because vampires aren't pretty. We like stuff that isn't pretty, but not girls. They like only pretty things. This is the same Teddy who earlier told the story about a boy named Pretty. Here he renounces that which is pretty, and we can see that the other boys have won him over. The boys reinforce each other in their negative, antifeminine behavior. This comes out clearly whenever the girls try to get boys to play house with them: "All the boys, even Andrew, will agree to a brief stint as father if they are alone when asked. "The girls understand what turns a guest into an intruder: The magic number is 3. If one boy is summoned into the doll corner, he is likely to cooperate; two, in certain combinations, might still be manageable; three, never. Three boys form a superhero clique and disrupt play." When girls play house, they are playing at responsible, adult roles. When boys disrupt such play by wrecking things in the doll corner or running off with them, they are rejecting the role of responsible husband and father as something that is not for a real male. The girls are playing at being responsible, mature adults, and the boys are reacting by defining themselves as irresponsible. Still, these young boys play at this destructive behavior only because they are with other boys. There is hope. If boys can be separated from each other and induced to play with girls, such negative behavior can be avoided. This fact highlights the significance of the home as an educational institution over against the school. For in school it is not feasible to break up the superhero cliques and absorb the boys individually into girlish games, but something on this order can be done in the home. This contrast between school and home comes out again in Paley's description of the "near riot conditions" that emerged when Jonathan brought his Star Wars album to class for the Friday afternoon rhythm period: "Customarily a new record needs a brief introduction before we move with the music. Star Wars needs none; as soon as it is played, everyone immediately imitates a flying machine. Arms out, heads pressed forward, the children fly around the room. Suddenly the boys turn on one another, leaping and screaming, "You're dead!" "I killed you first!" Robots run into spaceships, rockets destroy TIE fighters, storm troopers shoot at everyone. Each boy is fighting every other boy. Even Teddy is pulling someone down." Paley had the boys sit for a while and watch how the girls danced. But then when they rejoined the group, they started in just as before. The teacher finally gave up, had everyone lie down and read to them from Charlotte's Web. This is how the Star Wars album played at school, but at home it was a different story: "When I describe the scene later to Jonathan's mother, she is surprised. 'He's so quiet at home when he listens to it.' Of course, he doesn't have twelve other boys at home." It is the presence of the other boys that makes it so difficult to control this sort of unacceptable behavior and limits the usefulness of the school for the socialization of young boys. Only the home can perform this function in an adequate way. If a boy thinks that he should be bad because girls are good, then the home is the place to work on changing his attitude. If a boy thinks that he should do poorly in school because girls do well, then it is in the home that he should be taught otherwise. Cliques of boys encourage their members to engage in bad behavior. These cliques need to be broken up and the individual boys made to play with girls. They should be made to play the wholesome games that girls prefer, not the violent games that groups of boys go in for. Whatever games the girls want to play, the boys should be made to join them. Boys can be made to spend more time with females in other ways too. They can spend time with their mothers and older sisters, going shopping together and learning something about fashion. A boy who is attached to his mother often gets put down as being a "mama's boy," but the fact is that mama's boys are better behavedthey are more moralthan other boys. This is a good thing, and not (as the male supremacists try to tell us) a bad thing. Boys in cliques grow up to be men in cliques, and these too need to be broken up. These cliques are hotbeds of negative attitudes toward women. The "night out with the boys" needs to be ended. Nor should husbands be allowed to stop off with their buddies at a bar after work. Husbands should do what their wives want them to, whether it be going dancing, joining a bridge club, or whatever. They could be with other men at these events, but that will be all right as long as married men's social activities are completely under the control of women. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Re: Why All Boys Need to be Petticoated | Patti | 15:54:42 04/29/16 Fri |
| Re: Why All Boys Need to be Petticoated | Julie Wilson | 17:03:08 05/01/16 Sun |
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