Gender-Neutrality
May 15, 2011 by Jocin
When people hear “gender” and “sex” they often categorize the two things as the same. When in fact, sex is biological, and gender is socially constructed.
Sex is: male or female.
Gender is: girl, boy, woman, man, and is basically what society ends up piling on top of sex.
Gender-neutral parenting has been a recent trend. That is when parents do not impose social constructions of frilly dresses for baby girls, or blue clothes for boys. I first heard of this when I heard of a fictional story of a psychological experiment that a young couple took raising a child and never disclosing the sex of the child for a long time of his/her child-life. They did this by dressing the child gender-neutrally (in casual neutral toned clothing), maintaining a gender-neutral name, and never saying “he” or “she” in conversations.
Gender-neutral parenting however isn’t this absurd, although it seems like a political statement on behalf of the parent, it is strange to me. I believe I understand the perspective, as not to impose rights or wrongs on what their kid’s gender should or should not do. For instance, the J. Crew ad that has the mother painting the kids nails (something that Gwenth Stefani a celebrity advocate of gender-neutral parenting also does). Is it that controversial if the child wants to have his nails painted? It is based under a social construction that we think a boy shouldn’t paint their nails, for the fear of that makes them more feminine, or even gay. But, what about Celine Dion, her son looked like a girl for a while (he had his hair grown out mid-chest), was that a statement of gender neutrality?
When I asked a few people about gender neutrality, one person (a mother of two) said to a certain age a gender neutral parenting style can be harmless, and it is fine to do within the privacy of a personal home, there is no need to publicize if you are putting nail polish on your son etc. (This to me has an air of un-comfortableness to it). Another friend of mine, a single male said that he thinks the whole concept is kind of weird and gender roles should be followed to maintain order.
According to an article written by Niharika Mandhana called Boys will be boys, unless they’re girls, “So many assumptions about gender roles are just entrenched in our culture,” and “Being gender neutral encourages people to pause and think about their perceptions.” I think this statement corresponds with what Kilbourne speaks about in her speech killing me softly. Personally I think it is highly impossible to go completely gender neutral and think some parents are doing this just to make a statement, although respectable. I found it intriguing that Marianne Mullen started Polkadot Patch, an online boutique that specializes in gender-neutral clothing, all because Mullen’s friends were “stuck” buying her a baby shower gift since the sex of the baby wasn’t disclosed.
Gender-neutral parenting just seems like another way to capitalize on a market or publicity for celebrity parents/ attention for regular parents, and to conservatisms a form of hippy- parenting. Nonetheless, parents do what you need to do to raise your “normal” children. I don’t mind nail polish being limited to just girls but heck that’s what I am used to.
