My Chinese friend and I were talking today about the perils of being a girl in China. Everything from a seven-month-old girl being snatched from her grandmothers arms and placed in an international adoption to a grandmother prepared to leave the hospital without even seeing the baby when she hears that a girl has been born. My friend described how wanting to prove that she could be just as useful as a boy had been part of her motivation to work hard as a child (combined with a desire to avoid a life of sunup to sundown manual labor with nothing to show for it but "a little grain.") And her family already had a boy and was large even by the standards of the days before the one child policy.
Of course the situation in China today is a complicated mix of culture, politics and sheer physical need. But her point of "I can work as hard as a boy and be just as useful" got me thinking about how we view the roles of boys and girls in this culture. An example sprang to mind, which is still kind of smarting in my consciousness since it came at the end of an otherwise negative experience.
I had another appointment at my OBGYN office yesterday. It was the first time that I met the new doctor who is working with the group of certified-nurse-midwives I've been going to. To begin with she was running late and I ended up sitting in an exam room for a long time with nothing to do but read those annoying pregnancy magazines and worry about Allen and Liam in the waiting room. Liam has not been sleeping well since his fever earlier in the week and Allen has lost a lot of sleep taking care of him. And since Allen has started teaching a concentrated online summer course I knew he would have to spend some time at his office after the appointment.
When the doctor showed up she was apologetic for the wait. I wanted to help move her day along, but I had some questions about issues like circumcision and some of the physical symptoms I've been having. What ensued was a discussion in which I became increasingly suspicious that she doesn't really appreciate the approach the midwives take. I accidentally offended her by saying that I thought that I would have ended up with a C-section if I had not been with the midwives for Liam's birth. Silly me. I thought that since she was working with them she would value their approach. I didn't mean to be critical of doctors just to say that midwives are less prone to use medical intervention while still having a good record of safely delivering babies. By the end I think I had convinced her that I'm not a "non-compliant" patient, but now I'm worried about not getting the kind of care I thought I was going to get.
After we'd covered everything (except for the stuff I forgot - that's what I get for waiting to make my list of questions until I was already waiting in the exam room) I had Allen and Liam come back so Allen could meet her and Liam could hear the baby's heartbeat. When that was done she offered Liam a treat. Not candy. She said she doesn't give children candy because she doesn't want to be responsible for the results.
So she had a bucket with a variety of small toys. She started pulling out plastic insects, but Liam was not interested in those. I pointed out that there were some flower stickers, and she started rooting around for some "boy" stickers. She pointed out that there were little pads of paper, but Liam said we had some of those. She triumphantly pulled out a little plastic Native American soldier holding a weapon and when Liam wasn't interested in that she declared him "high maintenance." Finally he dug down to the bottom and found a plastic ring painted silver. He was satisfied. She said she was surprised that he would pick that because it was a "girl toy." Not to have my little boy misunderstood I clarified that it was a "superhero" ring. But Liam said that it was beautiful. And I think that's really why he wanted it.
So really, why does this bother me? Is it because I'm already worried that she doesn't see me as an individual with unique needs that can be met within the confines of the "system" that she trusts? Is it because I'd like the people who will help bring my child into the world to treat him with respect and not start judging him before his eyes even start to focus? Was I just feeling insecure as a mother and a human being?
Yes. All of those are reasons that this interaction bothered me. Also, it bothered me because these attitudes about what are "boy" and "girl" appropriate behaviors are pervasive in our culture and my little boy will face them many times in his life. Most of the time we hear about how they impact girls in detrimental ways. But what about my boy? Why should he be told that he is less "boyish" because he prefers a beautiful piece of jewelry to a "gross" bug or a stereotypical and violent figurine? Why should he even be faced with the gender implications of a choice like that - at age four? And if he does continue to love art and music, paleontology and engineering and a whole host of other pursuits will he end up feeling like he needs to justify some of those interests to the world? Will he, like me, end up couching them in appropriately "male" contexts - like superheroes?
Hopefully not. I hope that I can be aware enough of my own preconditioned ideas to help him learn other, healthier ways of viewing the world of gender roles and characteristics. Hopefully he will become a person who can be confident about his own characteristics and abilities and accepting of the individuality of others. And hopefully (because I've been obsessing about it all day so it slips into this discussion out of context) my appointment with one of the midwives that's coming in a couple of weeks will put at least some of my fears about the much more eminent arrival of another little boy in our family to rest.
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