Snowballs in Hell, Anyone?
The Ontario Minister Responsible for Women's Issues has just announced $1.4 million will be spent in a campaign against dating violence and sexual harassment to target firls from eight to 14 years of age. Sandra Pupatello's theory, I suppose, is to reach the girls while they are still young. In order to do so, an interactive website has been created. The site shows various scenarios in which females are being bullied by males and lets the kids explore possible responses to the situation ofr the girls directly involved and for onlookers.
What the government agency doesn't quite seem to realize is that it might already be too late, even by the age of eight. By that age, girls have already had too many years to internalize the message of secondary status that they are bombarded with daily. The media delivers the message non-stop, and even well-meaning parents can end up echoing it. Give it some serious thought. Exactly what is a parent telling their daughter about ther future when they fill her toy shelves with Barbie dolls?
I am reminded of the girls in my junior kindergarten class one year, and the talk we had about the play motorcycle a male classmate brought to show everyone. I asked the class in general who could drive such a conveyance. The boys were firm in their assertion that the driver had to be male. The girls were mostly quiet. I asked the girls, one at a time, to ensure they had a chance to express their opinion. One after another, they told me that boys had to be the drivers. One rather patiently explained to me that if the boy had a girlfriend, it would be OK for her to ride, if she sat behind the boy. I asked her why girls couldn't be the drivers, and she told me "they just can't". She was only four and this scene took place only a couple of years ago, definitely not long enough for there to have been a whole societal shift in attitudes.
Where was that little girl getting her hard-and-fast rules of gender conduct, if not from her home, above all? At that age, the power of friends to shape attitudes has not yet achieved the strength it reaches in the teen years. Mommy, and Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa - they have all been hard at work already (even if unintentionally) teaching this child that she and her sisters must always accept the back seat.
The $1.4 million earmarked by the government is like slapping a band-aid on a raw, gaping wound. It is acknowledgment of the problem, but it's only a drop in the bucket of overwhelming effort it will take to ameliorate this woeful state of affairs. Sweeping changes are needed and while I don't want to drape a wet blanket of pessimism all over Ms. Pupatello's good intentions, I just don't see them happening in any millennium too soon.
Let me ask, who's going to get the show "Ugly Betty" off the air? Who's going to turn around the societal acceptance of it being alright to call her by that label because she wears braces, is not impossibly thin and sports no designer label duds?
Who's going to get Britney Spears and her ilk off the stage and out of the consciousness of so many pre-teen and teen girls? Who's going to supply them with singing idols who don't make their breasts a major part of their shows?
Who's going to take Barbie off the shelf and replace her with dolls dressed in outfits every bit as lavish, but draped around a figure more realistic? Who's going to slow the non-stop sale of dolls for girls and hype the sales of toys that actually stimulate imagination?
Who's going to teach the boys that they are not inherently better simply because of body parts dangling between their legs? Who's going to tell them that no-one is any better or any worse than another person simply because they are?
Rap artists currently fill important positions as role models for so many kids. They can present listeners with a really interesting take on gender roles. Look at 50 CENT, for one, with his claim to fame of having been shot at nine times and survived. What are adolescent males learning from this paragon of leadership? The lyrics to his "Thug Love" for instance, include a repeating theme voiced by the women of Destiny's Child that say "a thug is what I want, a thug is what I need". Look for thug in the dictionary and you'll find it defined as "a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber or murderer". Great to know that's what this great artist is helping to teach both genders to accept in their understanding of gender roles.
Pupatello and her website may just be preaching to the converted. Any girl who is being raised with the ability to see herself and her gender as more than just a second-class decoration on some male's arm is already learning that life will present her with lots of challenges to prove she has more intellect than a doormat and more worth than a trophy. She already has adults behind her who are there to help her when she gets some dogshit from the lawn of life on her shoes. They wouldn't expect her to go it alone, so if she did end up cruising this site, you can bet they'd be right there to discuss it with her.
The ones who really need help, both the females and the males are likely to pay the site little attention. They've already bought into the current way of thinking that puts girls on the passenger seat of the motorbike and it's unlikely they'd find enough courage to challenge that from the cutesy little presentations offered on the Ontario government's website.
How is anyone going to get any of this crapcan state of affairs changed? Try publicly bemoaning the current state of societally-sanctioned gender roles and listen to the shit you'll get dumped on your head. I don't think Pupatello's agency has any more chance of success than a snowball in hell.
What the government agency doesn't quite seem to realize is that it might already be too late, even by the age of eight. By that age, girls have already had too many years to internalize the message of secondary status that they are bombarded with daily. The media delivers the message non-stop, and even well-meaning parents can end up echoing it. Give it some serious thought. Exactly what is a parent telling their daughter about ther future when they fill her toy shelves with Barbie dolls?
I am reminded of the girls in my junior kindergarten class one year, and the talk we had about the play motorcycle a male classmate brought to show everyone. I asked the class in general who could drive such a conveyance. The boys were firm in their assertion that the driver had to be male. The girls were mostly quiet. I asked the girls, one at a time, to ensure they had a chance to express their opinion. One after another, they told me that boys had to be the drivers. One rather patiently explained to me that if the boy had a girlfriend, it would be OK for her to ride, if she sat behind the boy. I asked her why girls couldn't be the drivers, and she told me "they just can't". She was only four and this scene took place only a couple of years ago, definitely not long enough for there to have been a whole societal shift in attitudes.
Where was that little girl getting her hard-and-fast rules of gender conduct, if not from her home, above all? At that age, the power of friends to shape attitudes has not yet achieved the strength it reaches in the teen years. Mommy, and Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa - they have all been hard at work already (even if unintentionally) teaching this child that she and her sisters must always accept the back seat.
The $1.4 million earmarked by the government is like slapping a band-aid on a raw, gaping wound. It is acknowledgment of the problem, but it's only a drop in the bucket of overwhelming effort it will take to ameliorate this woeful state of affairs. Sweeping changes are needed and while I don't want to drape a wet blanket of pessimism all over Ms. Pupatello's good intentions, I just don't see them happening in any millennium too soon.
Let me ask, who's going to get the show "Ugly Betty" off the air? Who's going to turn around the societal acceptance of it being alright to call her by that label because she wears braces, is not impossibly thin and sports no designer label duds?
Who's going to get Britney Spears and her ilk off the stage and out of the consciousness of so many pre-teen and teen girls? Who's going to supply them with singing idols who don't make their breasts a major part of their shows?
Who's going to take Barbie off the shelf and replace her with dolls dressed in outfits every bit as lavish, but draped around a figure more realistic? Who's going to slow the non-stop sale of dolls for girls and hype the sales of toys that actually stimulate imagination?
Who's going to teach the boys that they are not inherently better simply because of body parts dangling between their legs? Who's going to tell them that no-one is any better or any worse than another person simply because they are?
Rap artists currently fill important positions as role models for so many kids. They can present listeners with a really interesting take on gender roles. Look at 50 CENT, for one, with his claim to fame of having been shot at nine times and survived. What are adolescent males learning from this paragon of leadership? The lyrics to his "Thug Love" for instance, include a repeating theme voiced by the women of Destiny's Child that say "a thug is what I want, a thug is what I need". Look for thug in the dictionary and you'll find it defined as "a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber or murderer". Great to know that's what this great artist is helping to teach both genders to accept in their understanding of gender roles.
Pupatello and her website may just be preaching to the converted. Any girl who is being raised with the ability to see herself and her gender as more than just a second-class decoration on some male's arm is already learning that life will present her with lots of challenges to prove she has more intellect than a doormat and more worth than a trophy. She already has adults behind her who are there to help her when she gets some dogshit from the lawn of life on her shoes. They wouldn't expect her to go it alone, so if she did end up cruising this site, you can bet they'd be right there to discuss it with her.
The ones who really need help, both the females and the males are likely to pay the site little attention. They've already bought into the current way of thinking that puts girls on the passenger seat of the motorbike and it's unlikely they'd find enough courage to challenge that from the cutesy little presentations offered on the Ontario government's website.
How is anyone going to get any of this crapcan state of affairs changed? Try publicly bemoaning the current state of societally-sanctioned gender roles and listen to the shit you'll get dumped on your head. I don't think Pupatello's agency has any more chance of success than a snowball in hell.
1 Comments:
$1.4MM isn't much ... especially when you look at the dollars being lined up on the otherside of this fight. There isn't a chance in hell of winning this battle, unless, a combination of legislation and a whole lot of education -- at school, but especially at home -- is in place right now.
You know it's bad when girls today reject feminism outright, without even a notion of what the word means.
Post a Comment
<< Home