HOW SOON IS TOO SOON?
Just recently, I heard my three year old nephew say that no girls were allowed in his area. My nephew is a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew (his neurotypical Uncle Jimmy has a female partner, his autistic uncle is single) and he has a mother, two grandmothers, a sister and an aunty. Some of it you may think is just kids being kids, but toxic masculinity starts early.
My nephew has also attempted to take toys from my niece and toys that he didn’t want until my niece had them. What my brother called him wasn’t exactly what I would print here, save to say that he said it was a term also short for Richard.
What I would like my nephew to do one day, at child care, if another boy says, “No Girls Allowed,” is to stand up and say, “Stop! I have a sister, a mummy, two nannies, and an aunty. I want my sister to have the same chances I have. So let the girls play.” If another boy challenges him, I would like to see him say, “No. Some of us have two daddies, some of us have two mummies, some of us have a mummy and two daddies, some two mummies and one daddy. Some of us have sisters. We have to share.”
When I went to kindergarten, in 1979, the teacher and assistant used to, after some free outdoor play, take us inside for morning tea (usually fruit) and a story. Then, we had inside play, and the boys played with the girls in kitchen corner and dolly corner and the girls played in block corner and car corner with the boys.
I remember, 39 years ago, when we had dancing, and boys and girls were separate. One time, it was a Thursday afternoon, there was one more boy than girl, so a boy was chosen to be an honorary girl. A boy whom I’d known since kindergarten laughed about it and guess what happened next. The PE teacher, a woman, stopped and said, “All right, you quiet one, can be the boy, and you, Smart Alec, can be the girl.”
I wasn’t popular amongst some of the girls my own age, but I got on better with older girls, as I wasn’t into sport. I remember one boy I went to school with, who thought he was God’s gift to women, wasn’t as popular as he thought he was, and some girls have even admitted that I wasn’t treated well by numerous boys.
Some, like this ridiculous doctor, might be surprised to know that quite a number of women are actually happy to have male friends as platonic friends because there are males in the community who do not view every woman as a conquest and there are females who appreciate having males for friends, who know that it will not be sexual. And, there are some males in the community who are happy to have a female friend in whom they can confide, and who, rather than telling them to, “Toughen up,” if they are feeling sad, appreciate an uncomplicated hug that can be seen as a human being caring for another human being and that’s all that it is. I’m not saying that every man would do that to another man, BUT, I will also say this. I remember, when we did Parent Craft in high school (it was changed from mother craft) the nurse mentioning men giving other men hugs and a number of boys in the class sniggered and made sounds of disgust. The nurse said, “Just because two men hug each other, doesn’t mean to say that they’re homosexuals.” And she’s right! There are men who are not homophobic, however, who don’t like being hugged by other men.
What boys need is a positive role model, and that might be a father, a grandfather, an uncle or even a friend. And it is never too early to start teaching them how to treat women and girls with respect.