It Takes Two

In college I decided that if I had a little girl I would look forward to teaching her to respect herself, to think of herself as an equal, and to determinedly pursue her career dreams.

Now I hear mothers of girls saying things like, "I want my daughter to know she doesn't need to dress slutty/can do what she wants with her career/must go to college, etc., especially since she is a girl."

This bothers me a little. As a girl myself, I have spent a little time blaming men for degrading women, for ogling them on the covers of smutty magazines, for cheating on them, for paying their female employees less than their male counterparts, etc etc.

I hate cliches, but I'll use a partial one here. Equality is a two-way street. Gender equality will happen when both genders respect each other, see the equal value in each other, and all that other good stuff.

So I am not going to just raise my boys to be good people and assume that girls' parents will keep their girls pure and all... Charlie and Will shall know about their responsibilities regarding birth control; will hear me use both "he" and "she" pronouns when referring to a gender-neutral person (as in "the fireman wears her fire hat"); will have their use of arcade games with skanky chicks on sidelines severely limited; will be encouraged to follow their career dreams, even if that dream involves writing poetry, painting pictures, working at McDonald's, or some other thing that precludes them from bringing home most of the bacon; will never be scolded or shamed when they cry or show emotion; will know about the real names of female and male body parts; will be accepted and loved regardless of their sexual orientation; and will know all about conception, labor and delivery, and breastfeeding, so that they are not clueless husbands when they someday get married, if they choose to do so.

My boys are gonna be a real catch.