"What I Hate About Being a Boy"
The worst things about being a boy is that you "smell bad," "grow hair everywhere" and have an "automatic bad reputation." That among other things, is according to a nine-year-old Canadian boy who was asked to reflect on the expectations of his gender. The image to the right and story behind it have been making their rounds in theTwitterverse and causing a bit of a stir about just what messages young boys are picking up about their gender, and their apparent disfavor of them.
It comes from a classroom exercise given by Jeff Perera, a man with the White Ribbon organization who visits schools to lead discussions about masculinity. You can read more about the discussions that spawned the image and his impressions of them over on his excellent blog.
What this nine-year-old didn’t like about being a boy was:
Not being able to be a motherNot suppost to cryNot allowed to be a cheerleaderSuppost to do all the workSuppost to like vilenceSuppost to play footballBoys smell badHaving a automatic bad reputationGrow hair everywhere
Each one of these points is rife for discussion and interpretation, and they certainly have been in comments sections all over the internet. If we can say that these round up a sampling of issues that plague the hearts and minds of boys these days, potentially troubling here is the apparent dissociation that boys feel with being able to be "fathers" when they grow up, expectations of their emotional reservedness, stereotypes, propensity to violence and "automatic bad reputation," and their dissatisfaction with their bodies ("grow hair everywhere").
It certainly should give us pause for thought.
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