On Friday, 
laurie_robey and I were at Barnes & Noble when we happened to overhear a young couple shopping for a present for someone. The man of the couple had picked up a "Build Your Own Darth Vader" kit and said, "This is pretty cool." The woman slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Stop it, she's a girl! Put that down." She then dragged him off to some other part of the store.
My response was, "Girls can't like Star Wars?" Laurie's was, "Hey, I dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween when I was a girl!"
Cut to Saturday, when my art student (an amazing girl), wore a very geeky t-shirt of Luke Skywalker standing behind a pack of stormtroopers with the caption "Photobomb." Laurie pointed out what an awesome shirt it was, to which I agreed. My student's mother agreed as well, and said that my student had a friend at school who loved the shirt and wanted to know where to get it. When my student told the girl that it was readily available at Target in the boy's section, her friend looked crestfallen and said, "My mom won't let me shop in the boy's section." And that, apparently, was that.
Seriously. -.- What the fuck.
There's a certain tendency to think of gender oppression as something done by men to women; but that's an incomplete picture at best. When they've bought into it, frankly there's no more rigid gender cop than a suburban mom. :-`
-The Gneech
(Edited to clarify the final point.)
laurie_robey and I were at Barnes & Noble when we happened to overhear a young couple shopping for a present for someone. The man of the couple had picked up a "Build Your Own Darth Vader" kit and said, "This is pretty cool." The woman slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Stop it, she's a girl! Put that down." She then dragged him off to some other part of the store.My response was, "Girls can't like Star Wars?" Laurie's was, "Hey, I dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween when I was a girl!"
Cut to Saturday, when my art student (an amazing girl), wore a very geeky t-shirt of Luke Skywalker standing behind a pack of stormtroopers with the caption "Photobomb." Laurie pointed out what an awesome shirt it was, to which I agreed. My student's mother agreed as well, and said that my student had a friend at school who loved the shirt and wanted to know where to get it. When my student told the girl that it was readily available at Target in the boy's section, her friend looked crestfallen and said, "My mom won't let me shop in the boy's section." And that, apparently, was that.
Seriously. -.- What the fuck.
There's a certain tendency to think of gender oppression as something done by men to women; but that's an incomplete picture at best. When they've bought into it, frankly there's no more rigid gender cop than a suburban mom. :-`
-The Gneech
(Edited to clarify the final point.)
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Sorry for sounding like I was trying to slam all suburban moms. How about, "there's no grammatical construction more annoying than a vague syllogism"? ^.^'
-The Gneech
And toxic masculinity is enforced by men: few women 'joke' about taking away 'your man card'.
Basically, most members of society will enforce societal norms, even when those norms harm the members enforcing them. This is a good thing with most norms (like 'don't steal' and 'don't kill' and 'don't scream at random strangers for no reason'). It's less good with all the bloody stupid norms that have been floating around for generations even though they have negative practical value. -_-
I don't know why it bugs me so much more to see women acting as gender cops than men doing it; I guess it's my own cultural expectations kicking in.
-TG
So yeah, I played with dinosaurs, pulled the heads off my sister's dolls and was quite content. :)
-TG
-TG
"my art student"
Wait, what?
-TG
-TG
Wish you lived closer...a high school friend was looking for an art teacher for her daughter, and I am terrrrrible at that sorta thing.
*sits back with a smug grin and a 7,000+ mile safety margin* ;3
Edited at 2015-01-13 08:54 pm (UTC)