balaena

clyde 𐂂 24 ☼ he/him ❊ white 𖥞 18+ only

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mis-tih-see-tus. i mostly reblog & there’s suggestive posts sometimes. i tag nudity and bugs but not much else. you can see my art in my art tag. + misc under the cut…..

as kids watch honeybees in the garden or run from a foraging yellowjacket or even point out the big carpenter ants that are so different from their typical little black household ants, they refer to them with "he" pronouns. or, i will mention something about a honeybee worker, encourage the kids to pay attention to how she's foraging nectar, if her pollen baskets are full, or i'll rescue one from the pool, or she lands on me and a kid nervously points it out and i say "she's not bothering me", for some reason the kids will actually correct me, and say "no, he"... and then i explain to them that pretty much every honeybee they see outside of the hive is a female. same for ants. same for the yellowjackets after their turkey sandwiches. same for any bee or wasp that can sting you. and the kids think this is cool, and sometimes start saying "she" on their own. other times they'll ask, "what about the boys?" and i explain that their only purpose is to help the queen make eggs. and that can be hard for them to grasp, that "boys" can be so subordinate or seemingly insignificant. something so hard-working and threatening can be entirely and always "girls". but when presented with this reality, they tend to accept it. their default assumptions don't reflect their own beliefs but the ones projected onto them and taught to them, even so early in their lives.

a girl said just a few days ago in response to all the kids breaking the no running rule except one girl, "she's being careful because she's a girl", and i just said, "well, i don't know about that. i think both boys and girls are capable of being careful." and she said "oh yeah." and in the back of my mind im like, "really...? where was she taught this kind of thing? and has no one really challenged her view of this until now?"