gender stereotyping

my sister rachel told me her husband had started reading "the female brain" and i found this interesting because dave read this (or parts of this) book when i was pregnant. i read a few chapters as well and found it interesting but also found it interesting that when she reinforced each stereotype she did not note exceptions to that stereotype.

i have thought about gender role stereotyping a lot the last few days. i am definitely setting audrey up to be a girly girl. everything she owns is pink (with a few yellow and purple exceptions) and we even call her "princess" as a nickname. i don't know that she will like pink when she is older or if she will be a little princess or if she will be a tomboy, but for now she is immersed in all things girl.

in "the female brain" the author, Louann Brizendine starts the book off by telling the story of a patient who gave her little girl a toy truck instead of a doll. one day she walked in on her daughter rocking the truck and saying, "don't worry, little truckie, everything will be all right."

I found this story fascinating. Though this isn't hard proof that the girl's brain was wired for nurturing as she could have been shaped by other influences, it supports the author's idea that "there is no unisex brain."

I think about my childhood. i remember dressing up in my mom's slips with my sister and walking up and down the sidewalk humming the tune to "here comes the bride" and hours and hours of playing barbies. i also remember dancing around the room to showtunes like "annie" and "west side story" endless times. i liked cabbage patch dolls and my sister collected porcelain dolls.

my older brother was sandwiched between two older sisters and two younger sisters and flexed his muscles in every picture taken of him for the better part of a decade. his favorite movies were the rocky and rambo movies and he played with GI Joes and transformers. these are the movies and toys he liked despite having sisters singing showtunes and playing with dolls constantly. though this is how my brother was, there are boys out there that play with dolls because they look up to there big sisters and think that is cool. i don't think it is "against their nature" to be nurturing too. it is pretty fun to see how gentle and loving my little nephew is with baby audrey, he sings to her and cuddles up with a blanket while he "reads" to her, this is the same nephew that loves to crash his cars off his toy chest...

it was interesting to read the about the differences in the male and female brain. i just wish that she would have recognized that there are exceptions to each stereotype. she did say that child development was both nurture and nature but each of her examples were based only on gender stereotypes.

it was interesting, just not interesting enough for me to finish. it just seemed to be written from too narrow a point of view for me.