By How can parents help reset gender expectations when raising their sons?
By Elissa Strauss
Walk around a children’s bookstore today—or, more appropriate to our times, browse one online—and chances are you’ll see a section dedicated to girl power. There will be books that encourage girls to be strong, others that teach them about feminism, and others that seemingly exist only to tell them how awesome they are.
There is not, unfortunately, a parallel, gender-stereotype defying genre for boys. With little exception, there is no body of literature aimed at helping boys understand the patriarchy, including the ways it might lead them to hurt others or the ways they are limited by it. Very few books or toys are cheering on boys to be more vulnerable, empathetic, self-reflective, or even just to be different.
It’s a blind spot, though one for which we can forgive ourselves. It’s natural to prioritize those with less power—in this case, girls and women—in the fight for equality. Girls need to learn how to protect and empower themselves in a world that was designed to hold them back. Mills alumnae have been working on this for decades, and to great success.
So we’ve thought a lot about the girls, and oh so little about the boys. We’ve taught the girls to break away from feminine stereotypes, but we haven’t taught the boys to shrug off the ways they’re expected to be masculine. We’ve taught the girls how to fight back against oppression, but we haven’t taught the boys how to resist the cultural cues that can turn them into the oppressors—and prevent them from realizing who they truly are.
The reckoning around the #MeToo movement has, thank goodness, begun to change things. Between the Harvey Weinstein trial, Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, and other incidents, we have all had front-row seats to the aggression and entitlement that “real men” are taught from a young age. We’re seeing manliness in all its cartoonish excess—some of us for the first time—and feel awful for all those who have been victims of it.
We’ve also started worrying about the men and boys who are expected to uphold it. How might the expectation to be macho hurt our sons? What if
it leads them to hurting others? And how could a background at a historically women’s college like Mills affect a parent’s approach with their sons? Today, more and more parents are asking themselves the hard questions and attempting to, at last, reenvision boyhood. Experts have some advice.
The first thing to remember when raising boys is that biology isn’t destiny. While gender may influence personality to some degree, it is far from the only factor. Humans are far more complicated than that.
“Nurture vs. nature? That is a very old and passé question as far as researchers are concerned,” said Dean Morier, professor of psychology at Mills College. “With any of us, it is a complex interaction between hormonal influences and socialization factors, which include experience and upbringing.”
Research shows that many parents, including those with the best intentions, enter parenthood with a lot of biases. Even when children are young, parents are more likely to tell girls to be careful, thus making them more fearful of taking physical risks. They also tend to speak less to boys, thus making them less comfortable with communication. As a result, we impose gender ideals on children from a very young age, often without realizing it.
Still, even with this socialization and whatever biological factors are at play, very few of us are exclusively from the binary worlds of “Venus” or “Mars,” as that popular ’90s self-help book put it. One 2015 study, an analysis of four large data sets of brain scans, found that most human brains aren’t neatly
“male” or “female” as previous research described. Instead, it’s more common for individual brains to have a “mosaic” of features that include traits typically associated with both men and women.
Parents can help make sure their boys don’t get stuck in the “man box,” or buying into the stoicism and aggression often associated with masculinity, by nurturing all of their sons’ sides from early on. In fact, such nurturing can even shape them on a cellular level, thanks to what scientists call “neural plasticity.”
One way to do this is to focus, from the very beginning, on boundaries and
respect. Whereas girls are often socialized to be deferential, boys are socialized to be aggressive. We need to be teaching boys a bit more on when—and how—to stand back, and to understand the value in it.
“We have to educate boys and girls about how to treat others at shockingly early ages,” Morier said. This can begin with teaching them how we all have
the right to say “yes” or “no” about what happens with our bodies, and why we need to respect the same in others. Such lessons can be shared through
everyday encounters. In fact, some teachers at the Children’s School give their students a choice of what kind of greeting or farewell they’d like to use, from a handshake to a high five to a hug.
Tracy Clark-Flory ’06, a staff writer for the feminist website Jezebel, said she weaves lessons on consent into everyday encounters with her two-year-old son.
“It’s the little things. Instead of instructing my son to hug friends or relatives goodbye, I try to ask whether he wants to wave, blow a kiss, or give a hug. If I go in for a hug and he resists or pushes away, I think it’s important to be responsive and respectful instead of begging for one,” she said. “There’s no, ‘Oh, please, can’t mommy have just one little hug?’ which I’ve observed as a pretty standard parental behavior that, although not at all ill-intentioned, doesn’t communicate values around consent.”
Clark-Flory adds: “Similarly, when I’m tickling my son, if he says, ‘Stop,’ I stop and say something acknowledging him, like ‘No more tickling, because
you said stop.’”
As the children get older, and sexuality enters the mix, it’s important to be explicit about the importance of respecting people’s choices in romantic relationships. This used to be referred to as “the talk,” but it really can’t all be done in one evening. “You have to begin before they get to puberty and
then continue with it,” Morier said.
Research from the Netherlands, where it’s common for kids to receive education about consent and sexuality at a much younger age than their American counterparts, suggests that learning early and often about these matters works. Dutch tweens who were exposed to school-based sex ed from an early age were more knowledgeable about their bodies, more confident in setting boundaries and expressing preferences around physical interactions, and more accepting of homosexuality than those who weren’t.
However, teaching consent on its own isn’t enough. Raising good boys also involves teaching them to challenge outdated and often stymying notions of masculinity, and learn to feel empathy for others. The stronger a man adheres to strict norms of masculinity, the more likely he is to sexually harass or assault a woman.
Parents should introduce their sons to a wide variety of toys and clothes that represent all gender stereotypes, and encourage cross-gender friend-
ships that help open up children’s ideas about identity and self-expression. But—and this is important—don’t force it, said Priya Shimpi Driscoll, a professor of early childhood education at Mills College.
“We need to really listen to our children, to focus on who they are, and offer them opportunities to support them,” she said.
Driscoll explained that in order for parents to teach their children empathy, they must model empathy themselves. If your son or daughter expresses toy or clothing preferences that don’t match your ideas of what they should enjoy, don’t challenge them. This is the case whether your son prefers something typically designed for boys like
However, teaching consent on its own isn’t enough. Raising good boys also involves teaching them to challenge outdated and often stymying notions of masculinity, and learn to feel empathy for others. The stronger a man adheres to strict norms of masculinity, the more likely he is to sexually harass or assault a woman.
Parents should introduce their sons to a wide variety of toys and clothes that represent all gender stereotypes, and encourage cross-gender friendships that help open up children’s ideas about identity and self-expression. But—and this is important—don’t force it, said Priya Shimpi Driscoll, a professor of early childhood education at Mills College.
“We need to really listen to our children, to focus on who they are, and offer them opportunities to support them,” she said. Driscoll explained that in order for parents to teach their children empathy, they must model empathy themselves. If your son or daughter expresses toy or clothing preferences that don’t match your ideas of what they should enjoy, don’t
challenge them. This is the case whether your son prefers something typically designed for boys like Nerf guns, or typically for girls like tea sets. Instead, encourage them to explore themselves in a non-judgmental atmosphere.
Driscoll said that her own son has moved between preferring toys typically marketed toward girls, like baby dolls, to those typically marketed toward boys, like swords and shields, and it has taught her to treat all his interests with curiosity and respect.
“It is important for us adults to not see the world through adult eyes. Try to see the world through their eyes. Ask them lots of questions, and give them lots of choices,” she said. “Our kids are always changing. I don’t want parents to think that because their child plays with gender typical toys, that tells them who they are going to be in terms of how they will treat others.”
More importantly than fixating on what children play with, teach them the power of caregiving and empathy. Driscoll said this can happen with a doll, stuffed animal, pet, or even simply helping out around the house.
The key is to help them see that people are interdependent, and the myth of the solitary, tough guy is exactly that: a myth. We rely on others, and others rely on us, and through relationships we develop empathy for the other.
Another way to develop empathy for others is to discuss popular culture—including television shows and video games—and the news with them, and help them identify incidents of racism, sexism, or other forms of intolerance.
“If I see something with my son, we will stop and talk about why this is not OK,” Driscoll said. “It’s important to normalize these conversations, and make them conscious of other perspectives.”
Equally important is helping boys understand the prejudices they might face. The “boys will be boys” attitude, which assumes they can’t sit still and are prone to violence, is still ubiquitous. It hurts all boys, though especially boys of color. When boys learn to detect and unpack these biases, they gain insight into how the world sees them, and the ways in which they might be harmed by it.
Myila Granberry ’05, special education teacher and co-chair of the AAMC’s Alumnae of Color Committee, said that while raising her now 23-year-old son, she and his father had to make it clear to him that the world might see him differently than he sees himself.
“My son has always been the big, black kid. Today, he is 6’4”, 220 pounds. Over the years there were tons of incidents where he was singled out,” she said. “For one, he was the black guy, and two, he was the big guy.”
For example, when a relatively small white boy kicks a ball hard on the field and it hits someone, people don’t tend to assume malintent. Black boys, on the other hand, aren’t afforded the benefit of the doubt no matter their size.
“Every situation that we found to be possibly racially motivated, we had to walk him through,” Granberry said.
She also believed that it was important to balance these conversations about racism with giving her son reasons to cultivate and respect his sensitive side and black culture. As a family, they did this by taking pride in African American literature and art, and keeping tight family bonds.
As a result, she believes family dinners, regular routines, and being raised around lots of strong women helped him feel comfortable expressing himself—especially around the opposite sex.
“He has always been pretty mature and vocal with me,” she said. “We have that kind of relationship where he is open, and if I ask him questions, he will tell me more than I wanted to know.”
Possibly the worst part of the “man box” is how easy it is to get trapped in it. Once a boy learns to deny his vulnerability, he lacks the ability to acknowledge—let alone work through—his weaknesses or needs. How can he challenge gendered expectations when he is not even comfortable saying that something feels wrong?
Of all the things we can do to help boys right now, the most important one might just be to simply communicate with them. Listen to their thoughts and feelings, treat them with empathy, and—over time—help them do the same for others. The safe space begins at home.
