For most, gender is just a simple identifier that tells how someone is. When a child is born with anatomical features fitting either male or female, that is the child’s gender, no question about it. But it doesn't have to be that way. In the essay, “William Wants a Doll. Can He Have One? Feminists, Child Advisors, and Gender-Neutral Child Rearing” by Karen Martin (2005), she discusses the effects of second-wave feminism’s influence on gender neutral child rearing and how it is still seen as problematic because it is linked to homosexuality. “Girls Are...Boys Are…: Myths, Stereotypes & Gender Differences” by Patricia Campbell and Jennifer Storo is an essay that debunks myths that are associated with each gender and how being a girl or boy is
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Can He Have One? Feminists, Child Advisors, and Gender-Neutral Child Rearing” by Karen Martin, she uses the ideas from the second wave of feminism to influence the notion that it would be more beneficial for a child’s well-being if parents would start to raise boys and girls alike, which I very much agree with. “Gender-neutral parenting, as liberal feminists constructed it, drew from social and developmental psychology and social learning theory” (Martin). This idea supported the changing of children’s environment, specifically “what they are playing with, how they dressed, what they read, what they watch on television, and the roles the parents modeled” (Martin). It was and is important for children, boys, and girls, to surround themselves with things the other sex may be used to. The benefit for girls is that by associating themselves with boy activities they never lose that motivation to explore or build things, which a lot of boy’s toys are marketed for. And for boys, they learn how to care for things in a “motherly” role just as the title’s origin explains: “William wants a doll, so when he has a baby some day, he’ll know how to dress it… ‘Cause some day he may want to be a father too” (lyrics by Sheldon Harnick 19744). Gender neutral upbringing is all about children having equal opportunities that will lead to better gender equality for their
Can He Have One? Feminists, Child Advisors, and Gender-Neutral Child Rearing” by Karen Martin, she uses the ideas from the second wave of feminism to influence the notion that it would be more beneficial for a child’s well-being if parents would start to raise boys and girls alike, which I very much agree with. “Gender-neutral parenting, as liberal feminists constructed it, drew from social and developmental psychology and social learning theory” (Martin). This idea supported the changing of children’s environment, specifically “what they are playing with, how they dressed, what they read, what they watch on television, and the roles the parents modeled” (Martin). It was and is important for children, boys, and girls, to surround themselves with things the other sex may be used to. The benefit for girls is that by associating themselves with boy activities they never lose that motivation to explore or build things, which a lot of boy’s toys are marketed for. And for boys, they learn how to care for things in a “motherly” role just as the title’s origin explains: “William wants a doll, so when he has a baby some day, he’ll know how to dress it… ‘Cause some day he may want to be a father too” (lyrics by Sheldon Harnick 19744). Gender neutral upbringing is all about children having equal opportunities that will lead to better gender equality for their