I was a preteen in the 90s, and a teen in the 00s. Girls were told to go to college and have careers instead of aspiring to âonlyâ be housewives and mothers⌠and yet, on the playground, girls were still bullied out of sports and discouraged from active play in favour of âgirlâ games like make-believe, sandcastles, and maybe jumprope or hopscotch. I was severely punished for not being obedient and for getting angry and for being loud.
The only sports I was offered were ballet, tap, and gymnastics, all of which saw me getting bullied and discouraged by the teacher herself, because I was tall and going through puberty early, which made me bigger and curvier and hairier than the other girls. I was ânever going to be any goodâ because I was âtoo bigâ.
Boys, on the other hand, did not get encouraged or taught how to do laundry, cook, or otherwise take care of themselves. Boys didnât get support or permission to cry or âshow weaknessâ i.e. gentleness and vulnerability. Boys didnât get punished for violence. Boys didnât get offered dance or gymnastics or anything girls were offered because it was âfor girlsâ. Many grew up acting like their fathers, who were born in the 1950s and 60s.
Home Ec classes were sexist; but instead of making them required for everyone, they were simply shuttered. No one learned those vital skills now. Same with shop class.
We need feminism because we need to raise everyone the same way. Everyone needs to learn the same things. Boys need to learn itâs okay to cry, wear colours, be gentle, cook, have and want a nice clean house, nurture children and friends, and regulate their emotions.
In my observation and in my life experience, I have seen the vital need that feminism address that while empowering girls toward things is good, we also need to stop neglecting what boys need, and stop neglecting the things historically assigned to girls as universally bad. Thatâs sexist. Parenting has made strides in this regard; but thereâs more to being an adult than raising childrenâfor every gender. I think it far more vital to instill in people that learning to take care of yourself and your home is gender-neutral, that learning to repair and build is gender-neutral, that learning to socialise collaboratively rather than competitively is gender-neutral.
Feminists spent a lot of energy telling me I was supposed to want a college-degree-requiring career and leadership; and thatâs all well and good, but if boys are taught to want a college-degree-requiring career and leadership and girls are taught to want a career and leadership, who is doing the laundry and the dishes? Who is doing the trades?
The answer to that first one, in my peers and I at least, was that tasks for taking care of yourself and your home were a punishment. That raises miserable adults that have unhealthily dirty homes and struggle to care for themselves, because they associate doing so with punishment. And they treat jobs (and often the people who do them) that clean and cook with contempt, and refuse to do them.
The answer to the second is, well, nobody! Thereâs a MASSIVE dearth of people going into the trades now, because millenials and Gen Z were not told trade school was an option. Lots of usâme includedâwould have benefitted from trade school! Lots of us, as with all generations, are better at trades than the college stuff! Yes, especially girls! Feminism means letting girls be good at the trades!
I am grateful every day for what feminism has achieved and I am angry at those trying to undo it; but I also think we need to stop ignoring what the patriarchy takes away from boys; and stop condemning âgirlâ things like sewing, cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, emotional regulation, social skills, etc. I also think the trades crisis does have something to do with feminism, in that feminism was so focussed on disproving âgirls canât do higher educationâ that it kind of didnât leave room for girls whoânot because theyâre girls but because some people just arenâtâtruly arenât good at university subjects and are VERY good with their hands and with the skills and knowledge required in the trades! That is not a step down, that is not âfor stupid kidsâ, the trades RUN the world, and being good with your hands and with hands-on knowledge is not stupidity, that is just a different kind of knowledge.
I know the patriarchy keeps trying to endlessly fight on the most basic shit imaginable and itâs exhausting to keep having the same conversation over and over, but I think itâs important that we talk about all the other issues. I think itâs unfair to burden girls and women with literally everything we have been burdening them with AND everything we burden men and boys with, while letting men and boys continue carrying their burden alone and telling them it isnât a burden and not acknowledging the calibre of disaster it has been to ignore the issues sexism inflicts on them all this time. âDonât centre menâ has become âdonât talk to or about men at allâ and it has been catastrophic.
So what is my proposed solution?
Teaching people competition from birth is, I think, one of the root problems never addressed. We raise adults that MUST win every conversation, must win every social interaction, and only have âwinâ as their political goal for whatever group they put themselves in. You canât have equality when your values are to win, to be on top, to be the best.
We have to teach collaboration from birth. That requires massively restructuring education and child-rearing. Luckily, someone did all the work for us a long time ago, and gave us a blueprint.
Her name was Dr Maria Montessori.
Thatâs the solution, truly. You want equality? We have to start at birth, we have to start at school.