We’ve told our girls for years that they can be and do anything, gender norms be damned. So don’t listen to anyone telling you girls don’t play sports or study science or have to love pink, we tell them, you be you.
But when it comes to boys, that messaging hasn’t, perhaps, been as strong as it needs to be.
Part of that makes sense: we don’t have to tell boys they can be anything because even in female-dominated industries like fashion, the leaders of those industries are often men. Little stands between a boy and his ambitions. But do we let boys know that being “feminine,” or emotional, or soft is OK? Shouldn’t we? Because there’s a big world out there telling them they shouldn’t be, just as strongly as it’s telling girls “Leave sports to the boys.”
This whole issue is something TikTok user @autumnis_prime laments not being prepared for, which artist and TikTok creator Doug Weaver (@dougweaverart) stitched into a truly excellent point about the importance of boys seeing men who defy gender expectation and norms.
“Society will try to beat boys down until they fall in line,” he explains. “And that’s why as soon as my son started coming home from school with that messaging — when his peers started saying that he shouldn’t wear pink and that unicorns were for girls — I added so much pink to my wardrobe. I pinkified my life. And if he’s going to paint his nails, I’m going to paint my nails because if he goes to school with his nails painted then the other parents are going to be like ‘Hey, why do you let your kid paint their nails?’
“But if they see his nails painted and then they look at me and my nails are painted, then they’re like ‘Oh. He’s the problem, not the kid.’ But they don’t say anything to me. If they’re not brave enough to confront the color pink, they’re not going to confront me.”
Preach, Doug.
He wants his son to know that this is a fight worth having, not only for men “but for everyone society tries to reject.”
He offers the example of a boy who wants to wear a dress to school and gets bullied as a result. The boy, he says, might then think that if he changes the dress, he’ll stop getting bullied.
“But that will only work for that immediate situation,” he notes, observing that a boy who wants to wear a dress to school almost certainly has a personality type that does not conform to gender norms that society would put on him either.
“So while they’re getting bullied for what they wear now, they’re going to get bullied for who they are later. And if changing their clothes made the bullying go away when they were younger, they might think that changing their personality will make the bullying go away when they are older.”
This, in turn, makes for boys chasing an idea of masculinity they’ll never feel they’ve achieved, because they’re not being true to themselves. It’s something Weaver urges his son to keep in mind as a bigger picture.
“The people who want to take colors from him also want to take his creativity,” he says. “They want to take away his kindness, they want to take away everything that is soft in his life.”
Why is it, he wants his son to question, that they want him not to do things that girls do? Or queer people?
Being there with his son as a gender-norms defying role model, not just there for him, is important.
“If I can be an example to my son, and he sees people criticize me from time to time, and he sees how unaffected I am by it, that is an example to him of the strength and tenacity that it takes for anyone to just be their authentic self,” he explains.
The end-goal is to raise him to be an adult who not only expresses himself authentically but who serves as an example and a source of support for others to do the same. But until then, Weaver wants his son to know he is loved, unconditionally, just as he is.
It’s an important reminder as we teach our kids that their potential and dreams are unlimited: sometimes it’s less about ambition and accomplishment, but expression and authenticity.
