Boys and Girls

Really interesting and heinous article on gender and sex difference in relation to feminism. I have a huge amount of trouble with where the article ends up. Here, read the last paragraph.

From either a biological or cultural point of view, then, the feminist project of androgyny is ultimately doomed. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t do harm in the meantime. In America, many boys are slipping behind in school; their sisters are significantly more likely to go on to college. Yet thanks largely to the influence of academic feminists, legal and educational resources still flow disproportionately to supposedly victimized girls. In the end, gender won’t disappear, whatever the mavens of women’s studies hope, but the careers of some bright young men probably will.

Um! Hello! Couldn't the author have gone in forty other directions than feeling sorry for young men?!

For instance. Possibly the dichotomy of two genders is incomplete. Works sometimes, but not always. Possibly the dichotomy of "nature vs nuture" is also limiting, and not only can those forces not be separated, but are false opposites to begin with (can't think of a better term than "false opposites" because the proper word is eluding me.)

Possibly, too, the "goal" of feminism is not androgyny, after all. Possibly it is subjecthood for every person. This is my feminist utopia: a person, of either sex, can pursue the life and the identity that he or she desires. This seems quite different from a goal of flattening everyone into the same identity. HeLLO!

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Girl, from Winkipedia

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I keep thinking about this issue, of difference between boys and girls. The thing is, I absolutely understand the feminist wish to root out cultural assumptions about differences.

But the thing is, having had kids, I have a sense (perhaps unfounded and revealing of my own cultural bias?) that truly, boys and girls are different. Of course I know that boys are also very different from each other, and individual boys and individual girls are sometimes more alike than they are like their own sexes. But it's odd. When I know the boys and girls of my friends, I am convinced that there is something hardwired about their tendencies. I can't entirely tell you why. It's not something I expected to find in children and I find it fraught with implication for my own feminism. Nevertheless! I have to say they are different, and in ways that makes them similar to each other. Is it hormonal? Is it cultural? In the brain? I don't know. I've seen it, though.

Comments

[GraceD]

I don't know how and why boys and girls are different, but the feminist mother's imperative is to celebrate the differences. And, really, this is the healthy parent's imperative.

RE: the excerpt - the fuck is with those asshats who believe that the empowerment of girls comes at the cost of boys' self esteem and social standing? God, this is exhausting shit.

[Stephanie]

I was unaware that feminism's goal was to root out gender and foster androgyny.

I have observed my "kidlets" for 15 years now and there are obvious differences, including gender. None of it should be rooted out from them, they should be guided into healthful, tolerant attitudes.

And I agree with Grace, this is exhausting. Why do we have to keep covering the same ground? SisterR feels the same way.