Why Do We Teach Girls That It's Cute to Be Scared?
February 21, 2016 12:09 PM Subscribe
Parents are pressured and shamed into overprotecting their children and failing to do so can result in the authorities getting involved. Maybe we could start by having more sane playgrounds?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:23 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:23 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
The "Damsel in Distress" trope is a phenomenon that goes beyond the general trend towards overprotection of children, and doesn't apply to boys.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:30 PM on February 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:30 PM on February 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
It's so vicious: parents unconsciously reinforce society's signals that girls should be cautious; girls respond; parents, unaware of their own role in their daughters' socialization, attribute the caution and fear to their daughters' personality and keep reinforcing it.
It's like when parents say with a straight face, "She loves pink! We never told her pink is a girl colour; she just naturally prefers it!" Sure. You might not have told her outright, but you didn't need to. Kids pick up on all your unconscious signals plus all the ones society gives them.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:43 PM on February 21, 2016 [25 favorites]
It's like when parents say with a straight face, "She loves pink! We never told her pink is a girl colour; she just naturally prefers it!" Sure. You might not have told her outright, but you didn't need to. Kids pick up on all your unconscious signals plus all the ones society gives them.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:43 PM on February 21, 2016 [25 favorites]
It's not cute, and fear is not innately female or feminine. There is a big difference between taking a risk and a gamble. There is also a difference between being afraid and assessing a situation and declining the action because what can lose far outweighs what you can gain, even in optimal conditions. Fear should not be a motive we instill in girls because bravery brings us innovators, inventors, and visionaries.
Thank you for the link.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 12:49 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Thank you for the link.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 12:49 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I dunno...The solution to some of the situations described is definitely stop coddling girls (e.g. the fire pole thing).
But there are a few of those where I would think the adjustment should come in the way parents treat boys. e.g. I think it's pretty reasonable to tell both boys and girls to be careful after ending up in the ER or to not let them sled into trees or bike down hills into cars (two easily deadly "adventures").
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:10 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
But there are a few of those where I would think the adjustment should come in the way parents treat boys. e.g. I think it's pretty reasonable to tell both boys and girls to be careful after ending up in the ER or to not let them sled into trees or bike down hills into cars (two easily deadly "adventures").
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:10 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
So yeah, gender BS hurts everyone..girls who are afraid to slide down fire poles and boys who die in from sledding recklessly.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:11 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:11 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
Funny, I'm a female who grew up in the 80s, and I always felt pressured to pretend to be brave and do things I would have preferred not to do so everyone would think I was brave and courageous and my fears didn't inconvenience them. I also felt pressured not to do anything that seemed stereotypically feminine. I've never seen anyone encourage girls to say they're scared or tell us that it's cute to be scared. i felt more pressure to show fearlessness and tomboy-ishness because any preferences or attitudes considered stereotypically female on anything were treated like a big inconvenience that got eyerolling.
posted by discopolo at 1:39 PM on February 21, 2016 [32 favorites]
posted by discopolo at 1:39 PM on February 21, 2016 [32 favorites]
You might not have told her outright, but you didn't need to. Kids pick up on all your unconscious signals plus all the ones society gives them.
I picked up on the one that was "pink is for dumb, useless girls" growing up. It took me years and years to admit I liked pink. I felt like I always had to say blue or any color that wasn't considered "girly."
posted by discopolo at 1:44 PM on February 21, 2016 [26 favorites]
I picked up on the one that was "pink is for dumb, useless girls" growing up. It took me years and years to admit I liked pink. I felt like I always had to say blue or any color that wasn't considered "girly."
posted by discopolo at 1:44 PM on February 21, 2016 [26 favorites]
Also, I see a lot more learned helplessness in boys and men. I did a rotation at a student health center and the male 19 yr old college sophomore literally gave me his cellphone so I could talk to his mom about his insurance covering his rx. Then, he disappeared for 15 minutes. This at the state's flagship campus.
Seriously, I would bet good money that there are far more men relying on women in their lives because of their learned helplessness where their wives and girlfriends clean up the mess, help them restore their credit scores, help them pay bills, teach them how to do laundry, etc. They get coddled to pieces.
posted by discopolo at 1:53 PM on February 21, 2016 [18 favorites]
Seriously, I would bet good money that there are far more men relying on women in their lives because of their learned helplessness where their wives and girlfriends clean up the mess, help them restore their credit scores, help them pay bills, teach them how to do laundry, etc. They get coddled to pieces.
posted by discopolo at 1:53 PM on February 21, 2016 [18 favorites]
I picked up on the one that was "pink is for dumb, useless girls" growing up. It took me years and years to admit I liked pink. I felt like I always had to say blue or any color that wasn't considered "girly."
As a male I've also struggled with this kind of ridiculousness. I have brown skin and I know (based on various love-interests, ex-gfs, etc.) that colours like pink, purple, turquoise, look good on me. I have a lot of dress shirts in this color palette. I've had random guy-friends comment on my so called "girly" coloured wardrobes. Fuck that, I look good in these colours.
posted by Fizz at 1:56 PM on February 21, 2016 [32 favorites]
As a male I've also struggled with this kind of ridiculousness. I have brown skin and I know (based on various love-interests, ex-gfs, etc.) that colours like pink, purple, turquoise, look good on me. I have a lot of dress shirts in this color palette. I've had random guy-friends comment on my so called "girly" coloured wardrobes. Fuck that, I look good in these colours.
posted by Fizz at 1:56 PM on February 21, 2016 [32 favorites]
My 7yo daughter has very clearly decided she's Supposed to be scared of spiders and things and it's sure as hell nothing we did. I figure she'll grow out of it, like she did with pink.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:08 PM on February 21, 2016
posted by Sebmojo at 2:08 PM on February 21, 2016
I remember getting a lot more leeway to be brave as a homely, tomboyish girl compared to my conventionally attractive sister. There was so much anxiety from adults that my sister would wreck her (more delicate, more expensive) clothing, scuff or muddy her shoes, mess up her hair, diminish a cute ensemble with a skinned knee and bandage - or heaven forbid, ruin her pretty face with a facial scar. I wouldn't hesitate to bet that she heard "Be careful!" ten times more often than I did as a grubby, short-haired butchling. I think there's a hearty dose of appearance-policing in the discouragement of girls from being physically brave.
posted by northernish at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2016 [23 favorites]
posted by northernish at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2016 [23 favorites]
I'm not sure that I ever thought it was "cute" to be scared? Nor does the article ever explain where it gets that? It was just the natural outgrowth of being expected to have zero flaws and yet to think of yourself as more fragile than a boy. I was chided much more heavily than my brother for even minor mistakes, and yet treated as though I was naturally going to be less capable at physical or technical tasks. As a result, I developed a heavy avoidance for anything that felt like risk... and virtually everything felt like risk. Probably in a more extreme way than most, because for example my dad didn't actually think I was capable of even safely driving a car, but weirdly few people actually contradicted that sort of thing.
I guess there was sort of a sense, later, that you were supposed to be more scared of walking alone in the dark, but that was because you were fragile and a man might hurt you in a way he wouldn't hurt you if you were a boy. I don't remember often being encouraged to be scared so much as encouraged to keep a wide berth from anything that could conceivably be scary. Actually encountering a scary thing would be a failure in and of itself.
posted by Sequence at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
I guess there was sort of a sense, later, that you were supposed to be more scared of walking alone in the dark, but that was because you were fragile and a man might hurt you in a way he wouldn't hurt you if you were a boy. I don't remember often being encouraged to be scared so much as encouraged to keep a wide berth from anything that could conceivably be scary. Actually encountering a scary thing would be a failure in and of itself.
posted by Sequence at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
My 7yo daughter has very clearly decided she's Supposed to be scared of spiders
Maybe she read pjern's post. I take spiders and spider bites very seriously after that because it's no joke.
Your daughter sounds smart, IMO.
posted by discopolo at 2:13 PM on February 21, 2016
Maybe she read pjern's post. I take spiders and spider bites very seriously after that because it's no joke.
Your daughter sounds smart, IMO.
posted by discopolo at 2:13 PM on February 21, 2016
We live in New Zealand. Our spiders are almost universally harmless.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:17 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Sebmojo at 2:17 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Maybe she's just afraid of fucking spiders, sheesh.
posted by stoneandstar at 2:22 PM on February 21, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by stoneandstar at 2:22 PM on February 21, 2016 [9 favorites]
We live in New Zealand. Our spiders are almost universally harmless.
Almost is not a guarantee. I saw the pic of the huge wound in pjern's back and I was done with all spiders forever. I see one hanging around the house, he's dead. Imma kill him. Can't live rent free and cozy up to me in my bed when I'm asleep, no sir.
Plus, I read a story where a spider crawled into a kid's ear and laid eggs. As someone prone to empathy, I can kind of feel that in my ear and it's not pleasant.
posted by discopolo at 2:26 PM on February 21, 2016
Almost is not a guarantee. I saw the pic of the huge wound in pjern's back and I was done with all spiders forever. I see one hanging around the house, he's dead. Imma kill him. Can't live rent free and cozy up to me in my bed when I'm asleep, no sir.
Plus, I read a story where a spider crawled into a kid's ear and laid eggs. As someone prone to empathy, I can kind of feel that in my ear and it's not pleasant.
posted by discopolo at 2:26 PM on February 21, 2016
Well my feeling is that being scared of actually scary things is good, and sensible, and should be encouraged within reason in a way that lessens the chance of major physical or mental harm resulting from those things. Being scared of things that aren't actually scary, and have a vanishingly small chance of hurting you, should not.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:29 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 2:29 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I take it from this post and the comments that girls are scared because parents teach them to be scared but that boys are not scared because males are not supposed to be scared (it is unmanly). If a male acts scared, he tries not to show it. If a girl acts scared, well that is natural.
posted by Postroad at 2:43 PM on February 21, 2016
posted by Postroad at 2:43 PM on February 21, 2016
Just asked my daughter what she's scared of, and she said she's scared of dolls because they're creepy. Son: dark, because something scary might eat him.
Those make sense to me.
Neither of the little maniacs appear to be scared of much else.
posted by jpe at 2:56 PM on February 21, 2016
Those make sense to me.
Neither of the little maniacs appear to be scared of much else.
posted by jpe at 2:56 PM on February 21, 2016
I was an incredibly anxious kid. I got major stomach aches getting ready to go to school, or sitting in balconies (they might fall down), hated elevators and stairs that didn't have the perpendicular panel in back so you could see through. I've been fucking terrified of crocodiles since a crocodile tried to eat me through the glass at a zoo when I was a very small child. I wouldn't stand near railings or floor-to-ceiling windows above about the third floor. I remember hiding in closets during thunderstorms and crying as a 4 and 5 year old, and my great grandmother telling my mom to slap me to get me to stop being a baby (my mom did not).
But now I have stuff I want to do, and doing that involves things I have been afraid of, and I don't want the things I was afraid of to keep from getting shit done. y parents never really treated my fears in the gendered way the article talks about. Because I was so anxious and Type A and a perfectionist kid, they spent a lot more time encouraging me to try things and stretch myself and take risks and fail on occasion, and I think that really laid the groundwork for me to say, OK. I can survive this thunderstorm in the rain forest and I can be totally on my own for this period of time and I can figure shit out and it'll be OK. And if something bad happens, I can probably fix it! I'm a capable lady!
I'm not afraid of very much anymore. What I am afraid of, I take precautions against and then move on with my life. I'll tromp around a rain forest. I'll learn how to climb trees. I'll climb a radio tower, scramble across rivers on fallen logs, travel on my own, learn new languages. People scare me sometimes, but they're no less scary in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and general friendliness and a willingness to look goofy and ask people questions about themselves has diffused a lot of tension. Crocodiles are still terrifying, but I feel like if I have to be irrationally afraid of something, giant calculating lizards with many teeth are an OK thing to choose.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:12 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
But now I have stuff I want to do, and doing that involves things I have been afraid of, and I don't want the things I was afraid of to keep from getting shit done. y parents never really treated my fears in the gendered way the article talks about. Because I was so anxious and Type A and a perfectionist kid, they spent a lot more time encouraging me to try things and stretch myself and take risks and fail on occasion, and I think that really laid the groundwork for me to say, OK. I can survive this thunderstorm in the rain forest and I can be totally on my own for this period of time and I can figure shit out and it'll be OK. And if something bad happens, I can probably fix it! I'm a capable lady!
I'm not afraid of very much anymore. What I am afraid of, I take precautions against and then move on with my life. I'll tromp around a rain forest. I'll learn how to climb trees. I'll climb a radio tower, scramble across rivers on fallen logs, travel on my own, learn new languages. People scare me sometimes, but they're no less scary in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and general friendliness and a willingness to look goofy and ask people questions about themselves has diffused a lot of tension. Crocodiles are still terrifying, but I feel like if I have to be irrationally afraid of something, giant calculating lizards with many teeth are an OK thing to choose.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:12 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure we teach girls to be scared of things- I think we teach EVERYONE in the US that life is out to get us. It is, but it's nothing personal.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 3:35 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 3:35 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure we teach girls to be scared of things
Is that based on anything? Did you read the article? What do you think about the evidence it presents for girls being taught to be scared of things more than boys are?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 4:16 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
Is that based on anything? Did you read the article? What do you think about the evidence it presents for girls being taught to be scared of things more than boys are?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 4:16 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
The article never mentions the many female dominated sports that are very dangerous like gymnastics, ice skating, and horseback riding that get a ton of interest from little girls and more female participants than male participants at young ages.
Maybe parents think it's useless to hold back boys or boys are less likely to listen and try to people please than girls are. Parents are very hard on little girls and very restrictive, and shaming and guilt-tripping work very well on girls and women of all ages for all kinds of things.
posted by discopolo at 4:23 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
Maybe parents think it's useless to hold back boys or boys are less likely to listen and try to people please than girls are. Parents are very hard on little girls and very restrictive, and shaming and guilt-tripping work very well on girls and women of all ages for all kinds of things.
posted by discopolo at 4:23 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm kind of iffy on this article. Both my boyfriend and I are very cautious people with phobias and I wouldn't say it's like, a huge moral failing or anything. Frankly, I have very little physical courage, physical coordination, or interest in physical valor. And I don't really care.
I do think we tell little girls to hold back a bit-- I remember my mom buying me a science kit and returning it to the store the next day because the chemicals were "too dangerous"-- but I am also not sure how much that is related to me being a high-anxiety adult. Or is it a feedback loop-- for instance, I hate driving and am afraid of it, and my dad always discourages me from driving. I assume if I were a man he'd expect me to man up and just do it, but my boyfriend's parents hate it when he drives because it's too dangerous, so... I don't know.
posted by stoneandstar at 5:19 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I do think we tell little girls to hold back a bit-- I remember my mom buying me a science kit and returning it to the store the next day because the chemicals were "too dangerous"-- but I am also not sure how much that is related to me being a high-anxiety adult. Or is it a feedback loop-- for instance, I hate driving and am afraid of it, and my dad always discourages me from driving. I assume if I were a man he'd expect me to man up and just do it, but my boyfriend's parents hate it when he drives because it's too dangerous, so... I don't know.
posted by stoneandstar at 5:19 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I knew quite a few girls who were not allowed to join gymnastics because they were too dangerous, and were encouraged to go into dancing instead. I also vividly remember watching tons of anime where the cute, squeaky anime girl cries until a "nice guy" comes by and helps out. Blech.
Heteronormativity and a lack of positive, healthy social messages made me socially fucked up for years until I de-learned it all in college, since I was constantly scared but also couldn't ask for help for fear of being ridiculed, and then there were a few guys who were into 'rescuing me' while girls were catty and mean as fuck. No one knew how to hold a proper discussion or how to dismantle all of these toxic behaviors that we were doing! It was a bizarre nightmare since I think we were just parroting negative toxic messages. I'm honestly grateful that I've met a few 14 year olds who are socially active and aware, and have more tools to critique media messages because of the internet and tumblr. I hope that they will have a much easier childhood than I had, even though it was only 10 years ago.
I think the greater issue is the patriarchy and how these media messages impede on young girls' agency and confidence to make decisions for themselves, and to find helpful guidance that is not submerged in sexism or racism.
posted by yueliang at 5:20 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
Heteronormativity and a lack of positive, healthy social messages made me socially fucked up for years until I de-learned it all in college, since I was constantly scared but also couldn't ask for help for fear of being ridiculed, and then there were a few guys who were into 'rescuing me' while girls were catty and mean as fuck. No one knew how to hold a proper discussion or how to dismantle all of these toxic behaviors that we were doing! It was a bizarre nightmare since I think we were just parroting negative toxic messages. I'm honestly grateful that I've met a few 14 year olds who are socially active and aware, and have more tools to critique media messages because of the internet and tumblr. I hope that they will have a much easier childhood than I had, even though it was only 10 years ago.
I think the greater issue is the patriarchy and how these media messages impede on young girls' agency and confidence to make decisions for themselves, and to find helpful guidance that is not submerged in sexism or racism.
posted by yueliang at 5:20 PM on February 21, 2016 [5 favorites]
And re: being afraid of spiders, sometimes things are just creepy and throw a switch in our brains that says "disgusting, flee now." I'm not sure if like, shaming girls for having fears and phobias is a particularly healthy corrective.
posted by stoneandstar at 5:20 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by stoneandstar at 5:20 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
Is that based on anything? Did you read the article? What do you think about the evidence it presents for girls being taught to be scared of things more than boys are?
I did read the article, and frankly most of the little girls I know are more fearless than the little boys. Caveat: I have always been a tomgirl, and still scared of things. But I did it anyway, cause fuck that noise. So my tribe might be less frightened than others. The article just says that people asked her if she was scared- running into burning buildings seems like a reasonable thing to be afraid of, man or woman.
I was with my nephews a few months ago- the youngest has NO FEAR. He got up on something too tall for him and he bit it. His dad just about lost it, and yelled at him not to do that anymore. Meanwhile when we were kids we just about set the woods on fire every weekend.
My own experience with it was my mother was terrified of everything- but she did a lot of stuff other people would find scary. She also remonstrated me for what seemed to be my daredevil ways- driving at night was a favorite topic.
So - a little from column A, a little from B- I think parents are terrified their kid is gonna die from birth on. I don't think it's unreasonable as kids can find a thousand different ways to hurt themselves.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 5:36 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I did read the article, and frankly most of the little girls I know are more fearless than the little boys. Caveat: I have always been a tomgirl, and still scared of things. But I did it anyway, cause fuck that noise. So my tribe might be less frightened than others. The article just says that people asked her if she was scared- running into burning buildings seems like a reasonable thing to be afraid of, man or woman.
I was with my nephews a few months ago- the youngest has NO FEAR. He got up on something too tall for him and he bit it. His dad just about lost it, and yelled at him not to do that anymore. Meanwhile when we were kids we just about set the woods on fire every weekend.
My own experience with it was my mother was terrified of everything- but she did a lot of stuff other people would find scary. She also remonstrated me for what seemed to be my daredevil ways- driving at night was a favorite topic.
So - a little from column A, a little from B- I think parents are terrified their kid is gonna die from birth on. I don't think it's unreasonable as kids can find a thousand different ways to hurt themselves.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 5:36 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh, this drives me crazy, and it really does happen. I'm in my fifties now, and I STILL get people telling me to be scared of piddling little things all the time. I don't often do physically dangerous things anymore because I've gotten sudden onset vertigo a few times, but I've had people warn and caution me about going pretty much anywhere except the grocery store by myself. Some guy once poor deared me because I was standing near some teenagers who almost shoplifted. No shit. They'd walked into a liquor store, stood next to the airplane bottle display a few feet away from me, then got nervous and left without taking anything, and the guy working there said, in seriousness, that that must have been really scary for me. Terrifying! I feared for my very life because I saw a couple of teenaged goobers contemplate petty larceny in a suburban liquor store!
But I have friends who have been all but cloistered since they reached adolescence. They don't go out after dark, or they have this weird little comfort zone around their homes they never venture outside of without a chaperone. And I realized recently that a lot of women around my age have never even been to a live music show without assigned seating. (That is, maybe they've been to a symphony or a musical at some point, but not to a band show.)
And here's the kicker: There's this weird sort of passive-aggressive (i.e. cowardly) snark some of them take on when I'm talking about doing things they wouldn't do, where for example, someone once told me that she didn't go to shows because she could listen to music at home without being groped. Like that's literally what I go to shows for, so I can be assaulted. And not just assholes think like that, either, but perfectly reasonable people who have just sort of internalized this idea that women are supposed to be fearful and naive, and if they're not, there's something hinky about them. And for me, anyway, it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. Like middle aged white ladies are supposed to walk around like they were literally raised on the set of The Little House on the Prairie somehow.
I was fortunate to have had a mom who was very, very wild in her youth, so when she'd start cautioning me about not doing something dangerous, I could say, "OK, Mom, I'll try not to get trapped in a foreign country in the middle of a military coup," or "If I decide to ride my motorcycle across country with a traveling Shakespeare troupe I just met, I will call and tell you where I am."
But she did. The woman who did those things in her youth started to slip into this provincial mode when her own daughter approached adolescence. And for both me and my mom, some of the best times we've ever had were when we were doing things people told us we should be afraid of.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:40 PM on February 21, 2016 [10 favorites]
But I have friends who have been all but cloistered since they reached adolescence. They don't go out after dark, or they have this weird little comfort zone around their homes they never venture outside of without a chaperone. And I realized recently that a lot of women around my age have never even been to a live music show without assigned seating. (That is, maybe they've been to a symphony or a musical at some point, but not to a band show.)
And here's the kicker: There's this weird sort of passive-aggressive (i.e. cowardly) snark some of them take on when I'm talking about doing things they wouldn't do, where for example, someone once told me that she didn't go to shows because she could listen to music at home without being groped. Like that's literally what I go to shows for, so I can be assaulted. And not just assholes think like that, either, but perfectly reasonable people who have just sort of internalized this idea that women are supposed to be fearful and naive, and if they're not, there's something hinky about them. And for me, anyway, it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. Like middle aged white ladies are supposed to walk around like they were literally raised on the set of The Little House on the Prairie somehow.
I was fortunate to have had a mom who was very, very wild in her youth, so when she'd start cautioning me about not doing something dangerous, I could say, "OK, Mom, I'll try not to get trapped in a foreign country in the middle of a military coup," or "If I decide to ride my motorcycle across country with a traveling Shakespeare troupe I just met, I will call and tell you where I am."
But she did. The woman who did those things in her youth started to slip into this provincial mode when her own daughter approached adolescence. And for both me and my mom, some of the best times we've ever had were when we were doing things people told us we should be afraid of.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:40 PM on February 21, 2016 [10 favorites]
ernielundquist - my whole life I have been told not to do whatever it is. By men, by women, but mostly by the people you describe - they are rampant in our society and must be stopped! I have found when people tell you "You can't do that" - it really means they can't do that, and are scared you might prove them wrong.
I go around telling people they can do whatever it is- but they have to be ready for failure.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 5:59 PM on February 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
I go around telling people they can do whatever it is- but they have to be ready for failure.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 5:59 PM on February 21, 2016 [3 favorites]
Whenever I mention to people back home that I've moved to Chicago I get the same obnoxious reaction. "I COULD NEVER, BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO BE SHOT, BY A GUN." Thank you.
posted by stoneandstar at 6:00 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by stoneandstar at 6:00 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
Or is it a feedback loop-- for instance, I hate driving and am afraid of it, and my dad always discourages me from driving. I assume if I were a man he'd expect me to man up and just do it, but my boyfriend's parents hate it when he drives because it's too dangerous, so... I don't know.
I think the difference, at least in my experience, is this: I don't think boys or young men tend to get the messages that if something produces anxiety, that they should avoid it forever. If someone thinks they drive like a maniac, in the moment they'd rather a different person was behind the wheel, sure. But people won't generally suggest that this is a guy who should be looking for work-from-home opportunities, you know? Society seems more inclined to tell boys that "safety means risk management", whereas girls get "safety means avoiding risk".
posted by Sequence at 6:38 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think the difference, at least in my experience, is this: I don't think boys or young men tend to get the messages that if something produces anxiety, that they should avoid it forever. If someone thinks they drive like a maniac, in the moment they'd rather a different person was behind the wheel, sure. But people won't generally suggest that this is a guy who should be looking for work-from-home opportunities, you know? Society seems more inclined to tell boys that "safety means risk management", whereas girls get "safety means avoiding risk".
posted by Sequence at 6:38 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure if like, shaming girls for having fears and phobias is a particularly healthy corrective.
How would you envisage teaching girls that it's not cute to be scared? Don't you have to say 'you don't have to be scared of that thing, it's not scary' at some point?
posted by Sebmojo at 6:56 PM on February 21, 2016
How would you envisage teaching girls that it's not cute to be scared? Don't you have to say 'you don't have to be scared of that thing, it's not scary' at some point?
posted by Sebmojo at 6:56 PM on February 21, 2016
I was a shy, anxious kid who cried easily, and I sure don't remember anyone ever acting like it was cute, not one time. I do remember people yelling at me a lot to be brave and try things, and then yelling at me again when I got them wrong. I don't feel like anxious people of whatever gender need to be lectured more than they already are, honestly.
posted by thetortoise at 7:01 PM on February 21, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by thetortoise at 7:01 PM on February 21, 2016 [10 favorites]
Ok, so the spiders thing. I teach first and second grade, and I used to have a rose hair tarantula as a class pet. All of my students, regardless of gender, were fine with her when they were in my class. She was never taken out of her enclosure, as handling stressed her out.
They came back to visit her for a couple of years. At some point, though, some of the girls started to be afraid of her, and wouldn't even look at her when they came to visit my classroom. No one has been able to tell me why they became afraid of spiders. They just say that they are, they don't know why.
In my experience, these girls were fine with spiders, and then they weren't. I don't buy that they inherently have a fear of spiders that comes out as they get older, so they've been taught that spiders are supposed to be scary, and even though they were in a class for a year or in some cases two years with a giant spider as a pet, the societal pressure was strong enough to teach them to be afraid.
This is in an area where there are black widows everywhere, and I've never met anyone who knows anyone who has been seriously hurt by a spider. I move spiders outside when they get into the house, and I honestly have a bit of a problem with people who kill spiders for no reason. Relax, almost all spiders are harmless.
posted by Huck500 at 7:02 PM on February 21, 2016 [9 favorites]
They came back to visit her for a couple of years. At some point, though, some of the girls started to be afraid of her, and wouldn't even look at her when they came to visit my classroom. No one has been able to tell me why they became afraid of spiders. They just say that they are, they don't know why.
In my experience, these girls were fine with spiders, and then they weren't. I don't buy that they inherently have a fear of spiders that comes out as they get older, so they've been taught that spiders are supposed to be scary, and even though they were in a class for a year or in some cases two years with a giant spider as a pet, the societal pressure was strong enough to teach them to be afraid.
This is in an area where there are black widows everywhere, and I've never met anyone who knows anyone who has been seriously hurt by a spider. I move spiders outside when they get into the house, and I honestly have a bit of a problem with people who kill spiders for no reason. Relax, almost all spiders are harmless.
posted by Huck500 at 7:02 PM on February 21, 2016 [9 favorites]
I really liked this line from Neil Gaiman's introduction to Coraline: "I'd wanted to write a story for my daughters that told them something I wished I'd known when I was a boy: that being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. Being brave means you are scared, really scared, badly scared, and you do the right thing anyway."
posted by thetortoise at 7:14 PM on February 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by thetortoise at 7:14 PM on February 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
I... what? My boyfriend hates mice, and my best friend in grade school was a boy who was terrified of spiders. I am not buying this "girls are socially encouraged to find bugs scary" thing. Maybe they're encouraged to find things gross (boys trying to gross out girls on the playground and girls squealing in horror and sublimated delight, totally a thing), but I hated spiders as a kid and it wasn't because anyone was telling me it was cute. I often wished I were less afraid of them because it made playing in the woods a lot more anxiety-inducing.
I'm much better with them now but cockroaches, for instance, will send me running from a room. In fact I was so afraid of them that I went broke one summer paying rent on two sublets because I just couldn't live in a roach-y apartment anymore.
I can't tell you why I'm afraid of them but I barely slept for weeks when I had them showing up in my bathtub and hallway. I was never afraid of them as a kid because the idea of a roach was very abstract to me and I only saw them in the zoo. I don't mind spiders as much anymore, but a big tarantula? Nope, nope. I watched a segment on a weird food show about eating fried tarantulas once and almost threw up.
I've gotten over it a bit now through a little self-administered CBT, but I really think the fear of gross creepy-crawlies is beside the point, and I kind of hate this dynamic of shaming girls for being creeped out by things? I think it's more accurate to say that when a girl says "oh my, that is frightening!" we see her as a precious damsel in distress and enjoy it, whereas when a boy is afraid we're like, "what is wrong with you?" And both are harmful. Boys have more incentive to grow out of it or pretend it doesn't bother them. Girls have more incentive to stay inside or at home because it keeps them safe and reinforces their "appropriate" gender role.
I mean, some people are afraid of things with lots of close-together dots/holes. Doesn't really make a lot of "sense." And probably not when they were very small children, but just because phobias develop with time doesn't mean it's a weak girly thing to happen to you. It's probably likely that the older you get the more you realize how threatening and creepy the natural world can be.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:26 PM on February 21, 2016 [6 favorites]
I'm much better with them now but cockroaches, for instance, will send me running from a room. In fact I was so afraid of them that I went broke one summer paying rent on two sublets because I just couldn't live in a roach-y apartment anymore.
I can't tell you why I'm afraid of them but I barely slept for weeks when I had them showing up in my bathtub and hallway. I was never afraid of them as a kid because the idea of a roach was very abstract to me and I only saw them in the zoo. I don't mind spiders as much anymore, but a big tarantula? Nope, nope. I watched a segment on a weird food show about eating fried tarantulas once and almost threw up.
I've gotten over it a bit now through a little self-administered CBT, but I really think the fear of gross creepy-crawlies is beside the point, and I kind of hate this dynamic of shaming girls for being creeped out by things? I think it's more accurate to say that when a girl says "oh my, that is frightening!" we see her as a precious damsel in distress and enjoy it, whereas when a boy is afraid we're like, "what is wrong with you?" And both are harmful. Boys have more incentive to grow out of it or pretend it doesn't bother them. Girls have more incentive to stay inside or at home because it keeps them safe and reinforces their "appropriate" gender role.
I mean, some people are afraid of things with lots of close-together dots/holes. Doesn't really make a lot of "sense." And probably not when they were very small children, but just because phobias develop with time doesn't mean it's a weak girly thing to happen to you. It's probably likely that the older you get the more you realize how threatening and creepy the natural world can be.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:26 PM on February 21, 2016 [6 favorites]
In my experience, these girls were fine with spiders, and then they weren't.
My own anecdata... in 4th grade, we did some minor biology dissections, Planaria, Worms and a Frog. I was fearless and unafraid. I thought it was so cool. Some years later, in 9th grade, more advanced biology and dissections and I was so looking forward to it. And I found I was absolutely nauseated and squeamish. I still remember being profoundly confused and disappointed in myself because I had already done this and now, blech, I couldn't even take it. So, I dunno, hormones?
I used to also be a bit more bug phobic but then I also lived in the South and, well, bugs are not just bugs in the South. Now I'm a real grown up and not phobic about bugs and have enjoyed showing that off for my daughter and – so far – instilling a sense of no fear and no phobia in here about spiders and other crawlies.
I also really try to encourage her to be brave, do new things, be rambunctions and we don't cry (much) over skinned knees. And I also say, all the time, "Be careful!", "Watch out!", "Walking feet, please!" I don't know if I'd be such a weenie with a boy child but...maybe. (I hate skinned knees and broken bones, myself.)
posted by amanda at 7:26 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
My own anecdata... in 4th grade, we did some minor biology dissections, Planaria, Worms and a Frog. I was fearless and unafraid. I thought it was so cool. Some years later, in 9th grade, more advanced biology and dissections and I was so looking forward to it. And I found I was absolutely nauseated and squeamish. I still remember being profoundly confused and disappointed in myself because I had already done this and now, blech, I couldn't even take it. So, I dunno, hormones?
I used to also be a bit more bug phobic but then I also lived in the South and, well, bugs are not just bugs in the South. Now I'm a real grown up and not phobic about bugs and have enjoyed showing that off for my daughter and – so far – instilling a sense of no fear and no phobia in here about spiders and other crawlies.
I also really try to encourage her to be brave, do new things, be rambunctions and we don't cry (much) over skinned knees. And I also say, all the time, "Be careful!", "Watch out!", "Walking feet, please!" I don't know if I'd be such a weenie with a boy child but...maybe. (I hate skinned knees and broken bones, myself.)
posted by amanda at 7:26 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Up until I was 13 I had never heard my mom cry out in fear. I was minding dinner and she was in the basement finishing up the drop ceiling and whoa! She's shrieking my name in a way she never had. I grabbed the fire poker and bounded down the stairs to find her fallen off the ladder pointing at the ceiling. There was a remarkably large, intact snakeskin hanging out of the fiberglass insulation.
We'd moved from Chicago to a house in NOVA that bordered an unbuildable floodplain and were not used to this.
About a month later Mom got up a little later than I and told me she dreamed that there was a snake coiled around the coffee tree. She'd put it out on the porch for a misty night. She opened the door to get it and shrieked "GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" and slammed the door shut. Yup. Big ole blacksnake coiled around the coffee tree. I shooed it away and brought the plant in.
The last step in her aversion therapy came late that autumn. We were having some work done on the house and wanted to pull up the patio so the pavers wouldn't get damaged. We were doing ok, making progress and we pried up a flagstone under which was a fairly large cavity full of snakes, wrapped around each other and wriggling. They'd dug out the sand we had spread to level the area. We dropped that stone right back down. There was more than one species in there. Clearly, this was my problem to deal with. I soaked the area in gasoline and torched them.
That winter our basement became infested with those revolting cricket things that can jump at least a yard in the air and I did not want to go down there and do laundry anymore and mom was OK with that. 30 years later I lived in a house where I paid someone to change the furnace filter because the crawlspace was full of those things and I, a veteran who really got put through the wringer, could not deal with the thought of touching one of those things.
My sister is afraid of dolls. Nobody socialized us to find certain things revolting or disturbing. Somethings are just ick.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:36 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
We'd moved from Chicago to a house in NOVA that bordered an unbuildable floodplain and were not used to this.
About a month later Mom got up a little later than I and told me she dreamed that there was a snake coiled around the coffee tree. She'd put it out on the porch for a misty night. She opened the door to get it and shrieked "GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" and slammed the door shut. Yup. Big ole blacksnake coiled around the coffee tree. I shooed it away and brought the plant in.
The last step in her aversion therapy came late that autumn. We were having some work done on the house and wanted to pull up the patio so the pavers wouldn't get damaged. We were doing ok, making progress and we pried up a flagstone under which was a fairly large cavity full of snakes, wrapped around each other and wriggling. They'd dug out the sand we had spread to level the area. We dropped that stone right back down. There was more than one species in there. Clearly, this was my problem to deal with. I soaked the area in gasoline and torched them.
That winter our basement became infested with those revolting cricket things that can jump at least a yard in the air and I did not want to go down there and do laundry anymore and mom was OK with that. 30 years later I lived in a house where I paid someone to change the furnace filter because the crawlspace was full of those things and I, a veteran who really got put through the wringer, could not deal with the thought of touching one of those things.
My sister is afraid of dolls. Nobody socialized us to find certain things revolting or disturbing. Somethings are just ick.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:36 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]
"Little boys fall down and get up.
Little girls fall down and pause, stunned that they've messed up.
This never changes."
--Kelly Oxford
posted by zutalors! at 8:45 PM on February 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
Little girls fall down and pause, stunned that they've messed up.
This never changes."
--Kelly Oxford
posted by zutalors! at 8:45 PM on February 21, 2016 [11 favorites]
Look at fashion magazines vs. health/sport magazines. Fashion mags always have pictures of women with their feet turned in and expressions of big-eyed seriousness (not to mention the abstract-ish portrayals of actual assault - SEXY). In the health/sport mags at least the women get to smile and show confidence.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 9:32 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 9:32 PM on February 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
More anecdata on fear over time, I was a lot more courageous as a small child when it comes to bugs and gross things, I actively enjoyed them. I loved catching bugs, I had this book called Animal Grossology and I was completely un-gross-out-able. I watched my friend's dad's surgery video, for crying out loud, while eating!
Then around middle school I started to get nervous around certain bugs that I knew could bite and harm me. And other bugs, because I knew I wasn't very good at identifying the first category, and if there had been bugs that were in that category I didn't know about last year, maybe there were more I didn't know about.
And I had some minor medical procedures/issues that caused me pain, embarrassment and discomfort, and then it wasn't so easy to watch those kinds of TV shows (and no way was I watching a surgery video!)
It had more to do with learning about danger I previously did not perceive than with socialization.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 10:56 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
Then around middle school I started to get nervous around certain bugs that I knew could bite and harm me. And other bugs, because I knew I wasn't very good at identifying the first category, and if there had been bugs that were in that category I didn't know about last year, maybe there were more I didn't know about.
And I had some minor medical procedures/issues that caused me pain, embarrassment and discomfort, and then it wasn't so easy to watch those kinds of TV shows (and no way was I watching a surgery video!)
It had more to do with learning about danger I previously did not perceive than with socialization.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 10:56 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
Soooo. I make art in a shop in West Oakland (American Steel). We regularly have volunteers and even a few paid people (yay!) who show up in the afternoon and work well into the night. I generally offer to walk anyone to their car except he big dudes (and two ladies) who have taken years of martial arts and are kind of dying to be mugged.
Several shops in the neighborhood have been robbed. There have been many muggings.
I am a big-ish (harmless) dude.
Should I perpetuate the stereotype? Or should I leave women to the wolves and only walk the men to their cars?
posted by poe at 11:08 PM on February 21, 2016
Several shops in the neighborhood have been robbed. There have been many muggings.
I am a big-ish (harmless) dude.
Should I perpetuate the stereotype? Or should I leave women to the wolves and only walk the men to their cars?
posted by poe at 11:08 PM on February 21, 2016
If there have been muggings in the neighbourhood, and you are offering everyone the same accompaniment (men or women) to their car, then how are you "perpetuating the stereotype"?
If you only walked men to their cars, you wouldn't be doing feminism a solid, you'd just be really weird and contrarian.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:13 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you only walked men to their cars, you wouldn't be doing feminism a solid, you'd just be really weird and contrarian.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:13 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
'I'm not sure if like, shaming girls for having fears and phobias is a particularly healthy corrective.
How would you envisage teaching girls that it's not cute to be scared?'
Have the child's mother always be the spider wrangler. It will rub off on the child in time.
Chura Chura I loved your comment - flagged as fantastic. Those sorts of pervasive analytical fears I think are down to an active practical imagination: oh, what would happen if..? And then..? Which would make this happen....ultimate result being...
'Fear should not be a motive we instill in girls' - no, but I guess there's many places in the world still where girls and women are perfectly correct to fear horrible things will happen if they're caught out and about exercising the freedom to walk around by the wrong people. Surely this was true in the Little House on the Prairie days too?
There's a wooded slope near my house in UK that's popular with teenagers during snow times. People also dump rubbish there. I cannot imagine the adventure sledding downhill in a cast iron bath would have happened with a bunch of girls, and I also think it needed a group dynamic, with bravado and taunting and accusations of being chicken, to get those boys to do anything so stupid. They went down using a cricket bat to steer and brake, which didn't work of course. The bath was heavy enough to get a good momentum going and flipped when it hit a tree root on the second trip down. Luckily, they were all tossed out. Then, they could see clearly enough what would have happened to anyone's head if the rim of the bath had landed on it that none of the parents heard anything about this stunt till 2 or 3 years afterwards. And that was only because someone's little sister blabbed.
I know there's a reason I'm stringing these points together and it has to do with imagining consequences. 1. Imagining consequences can be massively intimidating but it will put you at a great advantage in coping with a risky situation. 2. Adrenaline and dare I say it, testosterone can have really bad effects on a persons ability to imagine consequences*. 3. Managing the influx of hormones is a key skill parents aim to provide their teenagers with. 4. Historically and currently women and girls have had very good reasons to be physically cautious as they go about daily life.
* useful in a conflict situation, not so much for civic life and long term planning.
posted by glasseyes at 1:56 AM on February 22, 2016
How would you envisage teaching girls that it's not cute to be scared?'
Have the child's mother always be the spider wrangler. It will rub off on the child in time.
Chura Chura I loved your comment - flagged as fantastic. Those sorts of pervasive analytical fears I think are down to an active practical imagination: oh, what would happen if..? And then..? Which would make this happen....ultimate result being...
'Fear should not be a motive we instill in girls' - no, but I guess there's many places in the world still where girls and women are perfectly correct to fear horrible things will happen if they're caught out and about exercising the freedom to walk around by the wrong people. Surely this was true in the Little House on the Prairie days too?
There's a wooded slope near my house in UK that's popular with teenagers during snow times. People also dump rubbish there. I cannot imagine the adventure sledding downhill in a cast iron bath would have happened with a bunch of girls, and I also think it needed a group dynamic, with bravado and taunting and accusations of being chicken, to get those boys to do anything so stupid. They went down using a cricket bat to steer and brake, which didn't work of course. The bath was heavy enough to get a good momentum going and flipped when it hit a tree root on the second trip down. Luckily, they were all tossed out. Then, they could see clearly enough what would have happened to anyone's head if the rim of the bath had landed on it that none of the parents heard anything about this stunt till 2 or 3 years afterwards. And that was only because someone's little sister blabbed.
I know there's a reason I'm stringing these points together and it has to do with imagining consequences. 1. Imagining consequences can be massively intimidating but it will put you at a great advantage in coping with a risky situation. 2. Adrenaline and dare I say it, testosterone can have really bad effects on a persons ability to imagine consequences*. 3. Managing the influx of hormones is a key skill parents aim to provide their teenagers with. 4. Historically and currently women and girls have had very good reasons to be physically cautious as they go about daily life.
* useful in a conflict situation, not so much for civic life and long term planning.
posted by glasseyes at 1:56 AM on February 22, 2016
The article never mentions the many female dominated sports that are very dangerous like gymnastics, ice skating, and horseback riding that get a ton of interest from little girls and more female participants than male participants at young ages.
I rode horses as a kid and a teenager, and looking back it is really striking to me how different a world that was from the rest of my everyday life in terms of what girls were expected to do. That was where I learned as an 11-year-old how to speak in a loud, assertive, taking-no-bullshit tone of voice (admittedly to horses rather than people, but it has been a very useful transferable skill); where it was not only okay to get covered in mud and muck and horse-hair, but actually expected; where we were actively encouraged to take up our own physical space, not apologise for it, and build up and use our strength. Plus, me and my friends spent a lot of that time unsupervised by adults, so we were discovering our own risk tolerance by zooming around like cowgirls doing things which were in retrospect kind of dangerous but at the time were just fun.
What struck me most about the article was that study on parents being much more likely tell girls than boys to "be more careful" after an injury-causing accident. It hadn't really occurred to me until having a child of my own just how meaningless "be careful!" is as advice on its own. We were at a museum at the weekend where there was a model volcano, complete with lit-up lava and shaking ground and smoke, and my toddler was trying to get over the barriers to climb right into it while chirpily repeating "be careful!" to herself. Really, what am I teaching her here by saying that to her all the time? She thinks it's an anxious-sounding noise that accompanies fun things, and it's not even stopping her from trying to climb into an active volcano at the moment, so... perhaps it's not all that useful. So I'm trying to replace "be careful" with specific instructions like "slow down" or "hold on with both hands" or "ask for help", in the hope that I can give her useful tools for calculating her own risk level before she gets old enough to just stop trying to do scary things in the first place. It's surprisingly hard, though.
Meanwhile, at nursery my daughter's class have been learning how to cut up bits of vegetable with knives. This scared the hell out of me the first time I saw a photo of it - she's not even TWO and you GAVE her a KNIFE! - but seeing her look of total concentration as the staff showed them how to keep knife away from fingers and keep vegetable on chopping board, I calmed down. My husband once did some work with a local school that involved a glass-cutting workshop, and was really surprised when it didn't involve keeping the kids at a safe distance away from sharp edges - the teachers were quite clear that assessing and managing risk, rather than just avoiding it, is a skill the kids need to learn. So they got a lot of "okay, which bit is sharp? how do we hold this so we don't cut ourselves? how do we keep our eyes safe? what else do we need to watch out for?"
When I was a kid out playing on horseback, we got a lot of "be careful!" from various adults waving us off, and we mostly just ignored it. (Or occasionally we'd shout back "Okay, we'll try not to get murdered!", which was just hilarious obviously.) But over time, a refrain of be careful... be careful... be careful... will add up, and not to any useful lessons about risk calculation. It ends up sounding like "Whatever you do, make sure you do it with fear!", and this is not what we need to be teaching girls to grow up with.
posted by Catseye at 5:39 AM on February 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
I rode horses as a kid and a teenager, and looking back it is really striking to me how different a world that was from the rest of my everyday life in terms of what girls were expected to do. That was where I learned as an 11-year-old how to speak in a loud, assertive, taking-no-bullshit tone of voice (admittedly to horses rather than people, but it has been a very useful transferable skill); where it was not only okay to get covered in mud and muck and horse-hair, but actually expected; where we were actively encouraged to take up our own physical space, not apologise for it, and build up and use our strength. Plus, me and my friends spent a lot of that time unsupervised by adults, so we were discovering our own risk tolerance by zooming around like cowgirls doing things which were in retrospect kind of dangerous but at the time were just fun.
What struck me most about the article was that study on parents being much more likely tell girls than boys to "be more careful" after an injury-causing accident. It hadn't really occurred to me until having a child of my own just how meaningless "be careful!" is as advice on its own. We were at a museum at the weekend where there was a model volcano, complete with lit-up lava and shaking ground and smoke, and my toddler was trying to get over the barriers to climb right into it while chirpily repeating "be careful!" to herself. Really, what am I teaching her here by saying that to her all the time? She thinks it's an anxious-sounding noise that accompanies fun things, and it's not even stopping her from trying to climb into an active volcano at the moment, so... perhaps it's not all that useful. So I'm trying to replace "be careful" with specific instructions like "slow down" or "hold on with both hands" or "ask for help", in the hope that I can give her useful tools for calculating her own risk level before she gets old enough to just stop trying to do scary things in the first place. It's surprisingly hard, though.
Meanwhile, at nursery my daughter's class have been learning how to cut up bits of vegetable with knives. This scared the hell out of me the first time I saw a photo of it - she's not even TWO and you GAVE her a KNIFE! - but seeing her look of total concentration as the staff showed them how to keep knife away from fingers and keep vegetable on chopping board, I calmed down. My husband once did some work with a local school that involved a glass-cutting workshop, and was really surprised when it didn't involve keeping the kids at a safe distance away from sharp edges - the teachers were quite clear that assessing and managing risk, rather than just avoiding it, is a skill the kids need to learn. So they got a lot of "okay, which bit is sharp? how do we hold this so we don't cut ourselves? how do we keep our eyes safe? what else do we need to watch out for?"
When I was a kid out playing on horseback, we got a lot of "be careful!" from various adults waving us off, and we mostly just ignored it. (Or occasionally we'd shout back "Okay, we'll try not to get murdered!", which was just hilarious obviously.) But over time, a refrain of be careful... be careful... be careful... will add up, and not to any useful lessons about risk calculation. It ends up sounding like "Whatever you do, make sure you do it with fear!", and this is not what we need to be teaching girls to grow up with.
posted by Catseye at 5:39 AM on February 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
I expected people to question whether I had the physical ability to do the job (even though I was a 5-foot-10, 150-pound ex-college athlete). What I didn’t expect was the question I heard more than any other: “Aren’t you scared?”
It was strange — and insulting — to have my courage doubted. I never heard my male colleagues asked this. Apparently, fear is expected of women.
This pisses me off so much. My husband and I ride motorcycles. For fun, but also for errands around town, since we don't own a car. So a lot of times, he'll wear his helmet into stores and places if he's going to be in and out real quick, because it's a pain to take it off and on all the time. But he gets annoyed that people take this as a invitation to strike up a conversation about his cool helmet and what kind of bike he rides, etc.
I almost never wear my helmet inside places, and last time I did (when I was dropping off a package at UPS--literally a 10 second exchange, what could possibly happen), the guy at the counter greeted me with, "Aren't you a brave girl!" This was like a month before my 30th birthday.
posted by gueneverey at 7:46 AM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
It was strange — and insulting — to have my courage doubted. I never heard my male colleagues asked this. Apparently, fear is expected of women.
This pisses me off so much. My husband and I ride motorcycles. For fun, but also for errands around town, since we don't own a car. So a lot of times, he'll wear his helmet into stores and places if he's going to be in and out real quick, because it's a pain to take it off and on all the time. But he gets annoyed that people take this as a invitation to strike up a conversation about his cool helmet and what kind of bike he rides, etc.
I almost never wear my helmet inside places, and last time I did (when I was dropping off a package at UPS--literally a 10 second exchange, what could possibly happen), the guy at the counter greeted me with, "Aren't you a brave girl!" This was like a month before my 30th birthday.
posted by gueneverey at 7:46 AM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think that girls and boys should do gutsy, dangerous things. If they want to But I also think that the notion that those things are inherently better is kind of troubling. I mean I remember a little girl in an cast off crinoline and my grandmother's old rhinestones , sitting on a tree branch with my best friend (a boy), because neither one of us wanted to play War with the other kids in our boy-dominated neighborhood. On my street, it would have been infinitely more acceptable (even encouraged) for me to be a rough-and-tumble tomboy (I wasn't) than it would for my best friend to, say, play with my Barbies and admit he was afraid of getting hurt. And the reason why was because while people could totally understand why a girl would aspire to more traditionally coded masculine qualities, it seemed unimaginable that a boy might want to play "like a girl."
Understand I'm not suggesting that girls should not be afraid of taking risks, if they want to throw themselves out of treehouses and play with spiders and set shit on fire that's cool. But I kind of think that the opposite is also true, like there should also be no stigma against a kid, regardless of sex/gender being like, "I hate sports. I don't want to throw spears or go camping. Getting hurt fucking sucks and sometimes pain isn't instructive but just, like, shitty and painful and I'd much rather compose disco musicals about Diana Ross and Queen Elizabeth and glue these sequins to this awesome tutu that I'm going to wear to school next week"* And the fact that the former is somehow viewed as better or more valuable rankles the shit out of me.
*YMMV, citing my own personal history here
posted by thivaia at 8:54 AM on February 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Understand I'm not suggesting that girls should not be afraid of taking risks, if they want to throw themselves out of treehouses and play with spiders and set shit on fire that's cool. But I kind of think that the opposite is also true, like there should also be no stigma against a kid, regardless of sex/gender being like, "I hate sports. I don't want to throw spears or go camping. Getting hurt fucking sucks and sometimes pain isn't instructive but just, like, shitty and painful and I'd much rather compose disco musicals about Diana Ross and Queen Elizabeth and glue these sequins to this awesome tutu that I'm going to wear to school next week"* And the fact that the former is somehow viewed as better or more valuable rankles the shit out of me.
*YMMV, citing my own personal history here
posted by thivaia at 8:54 AM on February 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
thivaia: On my street, it would have been infinitely more acceptable (even encouraged) for me to be a rough-and-tumble tomboy (I wasn't) than it would for my best friend to, say, play with my Barbies and admit he was afraid of getting hurt.
Yeah, same experience. Playing with Barbies when I was a kid would've been waaaay scarier for me than many of the things I did do. Falling through the ice on a minus twenty night half a mile from home while by myself (mind you, the water was only knee-deep) was much less scary than wearing pink would've been.
My sister's tomboyish tendencies, though, were something to celebrate.
posted by clawsoon at 9:41 AM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yeah, same experience. Playing with Barbies when I was a kid would've been waaaay scarier for me than many of the things I did do. Falling through the ice on a minus twenty night half a mile from home while by myself (mind you, the water was only knee-deep) was much less scary than wearing pink would've been.
My sister's tomboyish tendencies, though, were something to celebrate.
posted by clawsoon at 9:41 AM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
thivaia, that’s what I’m talking about too. I was “a tomboy” as a kid, but in that I liked video games and computers and most of my friends were rather non-masculine boys who liked to stay indoors. I really don’t think “girls, you need to learn to use a firepole!! moms have to be the ones to kill roaches!” is the real message here, the message is that we subtly expect boys to do those things and expect them not to whine, while we treat a girl like she’s made of glass. Maybe instead of frowning when a girl likes to catch bugs and also frowning when a boy doesn’t, we should just be like “ok cool.” We could also stop training boys to harass girls to get their attention, and call them stupid boring girls when they don’t like the same things. (And vice versa; girls who make fun of boys for being too girly is just the other side of the coin.)
Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being risk-averse, at least no moreso than taking stupid, dangerous physical risks all the time.
I also think it’s totally true that I got about 100 times more squeamish as I began to understand my own mortality. As a kid I was pretty fearless (with the exception of certain gross beetles which presaged my roach fear). But now I’m creeped out by some pretty random stuff, can’t watch grossout videos anymore, etc.
posted by stoneandstar at 11:02 AM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being risk-averse, at least no moreso than taking stupid, dangerous physical risks all the time.
I also think it’s totally true that I got about 100 times more squeamish as I began to understand my own mortality. As a kid I was pretty fearless (with the exception of certain gross beetles which presaged my roach fear). But now I’m creeped out by some pretty random stuff, can’t watch grossout videos anymore, etc.
posted by stoneandstar at 11:02 AM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
I kind of feel like anyone woman was allowed to grow up as a tomboy (or a nerd) is not the primary subject of the article.
I have seen family dynamics where a boy catches a frog and his parents say “ohhh, how interesting! What did you learn?” But if his sister tries to join in, the same parents say “ohhh, yucky, you might get mud on your dress! Be careful! The frog might jump on you! Step away from there, sweetheart!”
Boy breaks arm: “He’s just like his old man! You should have seen him, Billy was so brave at the hospital.”
Girl (boy’s sister) skins knee: “This is why we don’t run, honey!”
It’s insidious. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been carrying a box while existing as a female and people act like I’m performing a death-defying stunt. “Are you okay???? That looks so heavy!!!!! Let me find someone to help you!!!!”
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:28 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have seen family dynamics where a boy catches a frog and his parents say “ohhh, how interesting! What did you learn?” But if his sister tries to join in, the same parents say “ohhh, yucky, you might get mud on your dress! Be careful! The frog might jump on you! Step away from there, sweetheart!”
Boy breaks arm: “He’s just like his old man! You should have seen him, Billy was so brave at the hospital.”
Girl (boy’s sister) skins knee: “This is why we don’t run, honey!”
It’s insidious. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been carrying a box while existing as a female and people act like I’m performing a death-defying stunt. “Are you okay???? That looks so heavy!!!!! Let me find someone to help you!!!!”
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:28 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
My family had an almost completely gender-flipped model for the crawlies thing. My dad was absolutely horrified by spiders and snakes and insects, so until I came around, my mom would kill them for him. But when I got old enough, I was horrified by the killing, so I took on the responsibility of catching them and bringing them outside. I must have been very little, because I was really worried about starting kindergarten knowing my mom would be at home killing spiders all day while I was gone.
None of the women in my family ever had those phobias, but my dad, one of my two brothers, and even my own son do. So I suspect that it was just the result of some very subtle social modeling or something. I raised my son by myself, I didn't model those phobias, and I certainly didn't intend to teach them to him. But maybe he subconsciously saw the gender roles in my family and assumed that spider management was women's work or something.
But ultimately, anyone can and probably everyone does have some type of thing they just can't deal with. A phobia or some sort of thing they just can't do. But I also think, culturally, that there is a big gender divide in how we model kids' approaches to fear and risk, and it sucks for everyone, but I think it does tend to encourage girls to be fearful. I don't think it has to be shaming necessarily to encourage kids to work through their fears whenever possible, especially if those fears would be a regular impediment. And it's not like we discourage women from dealing with gross or dangerous things overall. Cleaning and childcare and stuff are really gross sometimes, and people get injured cooking all the time, but we don't teach girls to avoid those things.
But women are I think more regularly exposed to misleading vividness when it comes to daily life outside the home. Women in peril media, rare but horrifying news stories, and straight up urban legends, there are TONS of ridiculous stories floating around directed almost exclusively to women. Predators stalking your children based on information gleaned from stickers on your car. Bad guys hiding under cars with razors, waiting to slice someone's Achilles' tendons and then abduct them. Serial killers playing recordings of babies crying in order to lure people out of their houses. And look at how much of 'women's media' consists of true crime stories, often framed as moralistic cautionary tales about how dangerous is to leave your house.
Nobody tells little boys these cautionary tales. But I had heard volumes of them before I hit puberty, from grownups and other little girls. My parents didn't really do much of that, but lots of others did. And lots of people still talk to me that way, warning me about far fetched dangers, assuming I'm incompetent and fearful.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:13 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
None of the women in my family ever had those phobias, but my dad, one of my two brothers, and even my own son do. So I suspect that it was just the result of some very subtle social modeling or something. I raised my son by myself, I didn't model those phobias, and I certainly didn't intend to teach them to him. But maybe he subconsciously saw the gender roles in my family and assumed that spider management was women's work or something.
But ultimately, anyone can and probably everyone does have some type of thing they just can't deal with. A phobia or some sort of thing they just can't do. But I also think, culturally, that there is a big gender divide in how we model kids' approaches to fear and risk, and it sucks for everyone, but I think it does tend to encourage girls to be fearful. I don't think it has to be shaming necessarily to encourage kids to work through their fears whenever possible, especially if those fears would be a regular impediment. And it's not like we discourage women from dealing with gross or dangerous things overall. Cleaning and childcare and stuff are really gross sometimes, and people get injured cooking all the time, but we don't teach girls to avoid those things.
But women are I think more regularly exposed to misleading vividness when it comes to daily life outside the home. Women in peril media, rare but horrifying news stories, and straight up urban legends, there are TONS of ridiculous stories floating around directed almost exclusively to women. Predators stalking your children based on information gleaned from stickers on your car. Bad guys hiding under cars with razors, waiting to slice someone's Achilles' tendons and then abduct them. Serial killers playing recordings of babies crying in order to lure people out of their houses. And look at how much of 'women's media' consists of true crime stories, often framed as moralistic cautionary tales about how dangerous is to leave your house.
Nobody tells little boys these cautionary tales. But I had heard volumes of them before I hit puberty, from grownups and other little girls. My parents didn't really do much of that, but lots of others did. And lots of people still talk to me that way, warning me about far fetched dangers, assuming I'm incompetent and fearful.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:13 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
a fiendish thingy, that's exactly what I mean. Whether or not young girls are tomboys who love to downhill ski or horseback ride or whatever is beside the point.
Frankly, no one encourages women to be afraid of childbirth/cleaning/childcare but I am pretty disgusted by all of those things (even cleaning, I hate cleaning because it's disgusting), so... I dunno. Maybe some things are just gross, and women have to suck it up and deal with the repeated exposure until they get used to it.
I guess my point is that this is much like everything else; we bar women from doing things men do, we encourage them to be more feminine and helpless, and then we mock them for being helpless women. And we mock men when they seem too much like women. It's garden variety sexism. It doesn't mean that women can't be homebodies or afraid of bugs, it just means we should stop being like "omg, weakness is feminine, and feminine is bad!" Or conversely, "you are feminine so you have to pantomime weakness to be adorable to us."
posted by stoneandstar at 2:58 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
Frankly, no one encourages women to be afraid of childbirth/cleaning/childcare but I am pretty disgusted by all of those things (even cleaning, I hate cleaning because it's disgusting), so... I dunno. Maybe some things are just gross, and women have to suck it up and deal with the repeated exposure until they get used to it.
I guess my point is that this is much like everything else; we bar women from doing things men do, we encourage them to be more feminine and helpless, and then we mock them for being helpless women. And we mock men when they seem too much like women. It's garden variety sexism. It doesn't mean that women can't be homebodies or afraid of bugs, it just means we should stop being like "omg, weakness is feminine, and feminine is bad!" Or conversely, "you are feminine so you have to pantomime weakness to be adorable to us."
posted by stoneandstar at 2:58 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
It is so bizarre to me that people in this thread seized on insects and gross things when the woman who wrote the article was writing from the point of view of a firefighter and primarily framed her essay around women doing physically dangerous activities.
This essay resonated like hell for me, as a 30 year old woman who did not grow up doing outdoorsy stuff, and returning from a 35 mile backpacking weekend. I was with a group, but was otherwise on my own since people hiked at their own paces, and I often spent a long time hiking and navigating by myself. The only other women there without a partner or friend were all retired or very close to that age, and I do not think is an accident. Sure, some of it is because backpacking and hiking are still highly gendered activities (at least in my part of Midwest/South), and also because women have less time, but I also believe it's because there are a lot of cultural stigmas against the danger of being outdoors for long periods of time as a young woman.
When I tell people about my backpacking activities, the women often ask "Aren't you scared?" or say something like "I wish I could do that, but I'm too scared." And the men often ask me what my male partner thinks about me being out without him (he has no interest in backpacking, so it's sort of a funny question).
There is a fine line between realistically assessing safety and letting it hinder your pursuits. I see the latter happening far, FAR too often with women.
posted by mostly vowels at 2:59 PM on February 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
This essay resonated like hell for me, as a 30 year old woman who did not grow up doing outdoorsy stuff, and returning from a 35 mile backpacking weekend. I was with a group, but was otherwise on my own since people hiked at their own paces, and I often spent a long time hiking and navigating by myself. The only other women there without a partner or friend were all retired or very close to that age, and I do not think is an accident. Sure, some of it is because backpacking and hiking are still highly gendered activities (at least in my part of Midwest/South), and also because women have less time, but I also believe it's because there are a lot of cultural stigmas against the danger of being outdoors for long periods of time as a young woman.
When I tell people about my backpacking activities, the women often ask "Aren't you scared?" or say something like "I wish I could do that, but I'm too scared." And the men often ask me what my male partner thinks about me being out without him (he has no interest in backpacking, so it's sort of a funny question).
There is a fine line between realistically assessing safety and letting it hinder your pursuits. I see the latter happening far, FAR too often with women.
posted by mostly vowels at 2:59 PM on February 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
When I tell people about my backpacking activities, the women often ask "Aren't you scared?" or say something like "I wish I could do that, but I'm too scared.
It know plenty of women who love hiking and camping. I personally don't enjoy it because I have crazy allergies, like wearing contact lenses, hate peeing in the woods, and am a magnet for mosquitos.
i also like having my heating pad and Internet and Netflix. And I do the "wow, that's great, I really couldn't" out of politeness, because I prefer my creature comforts but I have to be polite to people who have different ideas of fun.
posted by discopolo at 3:45 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
It know plenty of women who love hiking and camping. I personally don't enjoy it because I have crazy allergies, like wearing contact lenses, hate peeing in the woods, and am a magnet for mosquitos.
i also like having my heating pad and Internet and Netflix. And I do the "wow, that's great, I really couldn't" out of politeness, because I prefer my creature comforts but I have to be polite to people who have different ideas of fun.
posted by discopolo at 3:45 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think this op-ed is just not for me. Reading it again today, I still think, if you want girls to not be scared all the time, maybe make a safer world for girls? One in which large numbers of them are not victims of sexual violence; in which they can get safely to and from school in every country; in which women are not expected to be perfect and not blamed for their misfortunes and mistakes.
Early Stress May Sensitize Girls' Brains for Later Anxiety
posted by thetortoise at 3:55 PM on February 22, 2016
Early Stress May Sensitize Girls' Brains for Later Anxiety
posted by thetortoise at 3:55 PM on February 22, 2016
Yeah. I mean, it's obviously true that the fear of stranger rape in the woods is "exaggerated" by whatever impulse draws human beings to want to gawk at horrible things, but on the other hand, women really do have to face a whole separate set of consequences for their actions. I remember as a kid, one of my guy friends playing really rough with his crazy dog who scratched up his arms and left all these scars, and I realized (even though I was only 9) that while I would've done that before, I couldn't now, because I was a girl and I needed to have pretty arms. And, I mean, I was right-- not that I needed them, but that I would be judged more for not having them. No one gave a shit about his scars because his body wasn't an object for public consumption.
I resist femininity in ways that are under my control (not shaving my legs, wearing what I want, etc.) but it's much scarier to have it out of your control. Women might grow up being a little more control freaky because they have to deal with the consequences of every damn thing anyone around them does.
I think that women doing activities they enjoy is good, obviously, but I don't really know if this article were about how more men own guns because society makes women fear guns and it's a sad tragedy and more women should own guns if we'd all be on the same page about that. Boys also play a lot more football than girls and that's not good for them either. Again, I actually enjoy camping on occasion and I'm not terribly afraid of the outdoors, I just usually find it unpleasant, and find that where there's fire/guns/wild animals/ice over deep water/the chance of a sprained ankle when one is alone, very bad things can happen. There are ways to be prepared, but you know, maybe it's not so much people overprotecting girls as a culture that tells us that boys' behavior (however stupid or harmful to others) is inevitable? Or probably, both?
posted by stoneandstar at 5:33 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
I resist femininity in ways that are under my control (not shaving my legs, wearing what I want, etc.) but it's much scarier to have it out of your control. Women might grow up being a little more control freaky because they have to deal with the consequences of every damn thing anyone around them does.
I think that women doing activities they enjoy is good, obviously, but I don't really know if this article were about how more men own guns because society makes women fear guns and it's a sad tragedy and more women should own guns if we'd all be on the same page about that. Boys also play a lot more football than girls and that's not good for them either. Again, I actually enjoy camping on occasion and I'm not terribly afraid of the outdoors, I just usually find it unpleasant, and find that where there's fire/guns/wild animals/ice over deep water/the chance of a sprained ankle when one is alone, very bad things can happen. There are ways to be prepared, but you know, maybe it's not so much people overprotecting girls as a culture that tells us that boys' behavior (however stupid or harmful to others) is inevitable? Or probably, both?
posted by stoneandstar at 5:33 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
Frankly, no one encourages women to be afraid of childbirth/cleaning/childcare but I am pretty disgusted by all of those things (even cleaning, I hate cleaning because it's disgusting), so... I dunno. Maybe some things are just gross, and women have to suck it up and deal with the repeated exposure until they get used to it.
This is not true for childbirth at least; the prevalent cultural depiction of childbirth is of either precipitous labor, where a woman's water breaks in the mall and ten minutes later she's on her back screaming and pushing, or of labor that looks more like pitocin-augmented labor and features back to back contractions with no break and also lots of screaming. We absolutely socialize women to be afraid of labor. Labor can be scary (transition can suck a bitch, seriously), but it can also be very boring. The boring part is pretty much never talked about.
Anyway, I think about the topic of instilling fear and bravery into my daughter a lot. I was taught to be very uncertain on my feet, told to be careful constantly. I work on curbing that with her. Still, she was a late walker and at 2, still sometimes a touch wobbly. We were at the park yesterday and she didn't want to go down the slide. I know she can do it. She has before. But I can see her psyching herself out. I want her to learn to use her bodies in ways that makes her feel confident. But I also don't want to do what was done to my husband. If he expressed a fear of a slide, his stepdad would have just chucked him down it.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:11 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is not true for childbirth at least; the prevalent cultural depiction of childbirth is of either precipitous labor, where a woman's water breaks in the mall and ten minutes later she's on her back screaming and pushing, or of labor that looks more like pitocin-augmented labor and features back to back contractions with no break and also lots of screaming. We absolutely socialize women to be afraid of labor. Labor can be scary (transition can suck a bitch, seriously), but it can also be very boring. The boring part is pretty much never talked about.
Anyway, I think about the topic of instilling fear and bravery into my daughter a lot. I was taught to be very uncertain on my feet, told to be careful constantly. I work on curbing that with her. Still, she was a late walker and at 2, still sometimes a touch wobbly. We were at the park yesterday and she didn't want to go down the slide. I know she can do it. She has before. But I can see her psyching herself out. I want her to learn to use her bodies in ways that makes her feel confident. But I also don't want to do what was done to my husband. If he expressed a fear of a slide, his stepdad would have just chucked him down it.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:11 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
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> Learned helplessness
posted by four panels at 12:19 PM on February 21, 2016