Gender Equality
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milkboys is a community for & about queer teen boys. Our goal is to collect, perpetuate and exhibit pieces of art and documentation related to the coming of age on one hand and to give teenagers a place to hang out and connect with other people without feeling guilty about it on the other. Please refer to our FAQ if you have further questions. Enjoy your stay, leave comments, have some hot chocolate and link us on your blog! Thanks :o)
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about 9 months ago
What a ridiculous statement! Why not raise girls as girls and boys as boys? I’m bi, and that’s my choice, by why impose a contradictory gender bias on a child who has to deal with the fallout later. Bring on drugs, alcohol and suicide with attitudes such as Gloria Steinam’s.
about 9 months ago
duh… it’s obviously not about imposing anything. It’s about letting them make their own choice, allowing them to do stuff they normally couldn’t do due to the gender roles.
about 9 months ago
Yeah, already as kids, boys and girls are raised different, already being pushed in the role society expect them to play.
about 9 months ago
God, is she still suffering under her never ending penis-envy ? I think that’s the real reason, why she said that – she wants weak, timid boys, not strong ones. If you don’t believe me, then inform yourself about Gloria Steinem, for example about her role in the “satanic abuse” hysteria (http://www.counterpunch.org/pollitt.html). You must be naive if you really believe that she wants to support boys. Wake up, please.
about 9 months ago
This quote sure engendered some strong feelings, wow!!! Regardless of what you think of Gloria Steinem herself, the reactions already tell me that she is right.
Raising girls like we raise boys — what does that mean? It means we tell our girls they are valuable, they can learn and do whatever they imagine, that they are strong, that they deserve to be treated well by friends, partners, spouses, bosses. That they deserve health care and education and to be paid as much as men.
I think most people would agree with all of this.
What would it mean to raise boys like we raise girls? I can think of a few. After all I have a son as well as daughters. I was a son. Even at the simplest choice, what I choose to wear, people have an opinion that says I shouldn’t. I’ve lived in the middle east and India. In the US people tell me I can’t wear a “dress” or a “skirt” because it isn’t masculine. It doesn’t matter if I tell them its a galebia or a lungi or a sarong. I want my son to know he is lovable and can express emotions. I want him to be able to play music and paint and be in theatre without someone telling him he’s a fag if he does it. I want him to be able to be straight or gay or bi or anything else without it being a masculinity issue. I want him to be able to make some of the same adjustments to life’s challenges we expect of women: to stay home with a sick child, or cook a meal, or take a turn staying home from work for a few months with a new born baby. I’ve done all those things and everyone thinks I’m either a saint or a weirdo. Neither: I’m a human being!!!
Long live human beings!!!
about 9 months ago
That’s the actual crazyness – you said: “I want my son to know he is lovable and can express emotions. I want him to be able to play music and paint and be in theatre without someone telling him he’s a fag if he does it.” How can one even think that being a musician or visual artist is something “feminine”? How primitive must the people in your neighbourhood be, if that ideas are a part of their mentality? Maybe you should just move somewhere else.
about 9 months ago
In fact in less recent history, pretty much every prominent artist and musician have been male, with composers like Bach and Mozart, or painters like Van Gogh or Da Vinci.
about 9 months ago
Whatever Gloria Steinem actually believed does not matter, so I wont get into that debate.
This quote still stands true. Traditionally any path a child picked in life had a specific gender attachment to it. When a girl acted tough, she was “acting like a boy” and if a boy cried because he was sad, he was “acting girly”
This quote acknowledges that most actions have a gender attachment, but says boys, like girls should be able to break free of the limited path society says they have to walk because they are male.
If girls can play sports, be tough and still be seen as acceptable, then boys should be able to be more outwardly emotional, and take part in generally more “female activities”.
about 9 months ago
The quote is good, but it betrays itself inasmuch as it still speaks about boys and girls and their respective education. If it was consistent it wouldn’t mention speak them and their difference and would thus not make such statement, no matter how true it is. It is self-delegitimising for its author still essentialistly sees the difference between boys and girls as a matter of fact.
about 9 months ago
Viva la difference !!!
about 9 months ago
I think this is a bit confused. Feminists have long fought for equal rights: in much of history, and still in much of the world, females are treated as second class citizens, or even as slaves, locked away. They miss out on education, they don’t get the top jobs, and for the same work they get paid less or nothing. This seems wrong, and makes sense to fight it.
But then, boys and girls tend to be different: that’s why this is Milkboys, not Milkkids, but we are all different – my sexuality changes from day to day (heeeelp!). Traditional gender roles suppress this: raising kids in both ways would mean even harsher repression, wouldn’t it?
about 9 months ago
I would not agree that the quote “delegitimizes” itself — it starts with the condition that we are in and then tries to make us see things from a different perspective. The truth is that boys and girls find themselves being channeled into all sorts of assumptions simply because of their gender. More often than not they struggle to figure out what to make of these assumptions and what accommodations they will make in life.
about 9 months ago
Why should we?
about 9 months ago
There had been some attempts by Ursula van der Leyen, the goal: to wipe out the male gender.
about 9 months ago
I don’t really care about the person who said the above quote. But society has decided a lot of things are “feminine” and a lot of things are “masculine” many of which are just normal. So, I don’t really support “raising boys as girls” but I do support not raising them as either. Raise them as humans and let them decide if they want to act one way or the other, or neither way, why should it matter?
about 9 months ago
the quote can be evaluated/discerned/undertood in a myraid of fashions, regardless of the author. girls are now brought up to play typically male sports and encouraged to follow academic streams that will avoid the glass ceiling. In deference to some of the above statements, one of western societies greatest current issues is ‘bullying’, the perpatrators often homophobic, the victims, often artistic. Current culture..ie adults eschew the virtues of ‘children’ being who they are. The adolescent peer groups often do not.
about 9 months ago
I play with dolls, I wear dresses from time to time, and my shampoo is scented like Strawberries.
I like cute boys, picnics, and I’ve painted my toe nails a few times.
I guess these are all “girly” things. I think the point of the quote is that (in my culture anyway) most people consider a “boyish” girl to be okay but a “girly” boy to not be okay. I think the deeper point of the quote is concerned with the more insidious view that perhaps being a girl is somehow less than being a boy, that its possibly degrading to be a girl, that being a boy is somehow better.
Simply put: many people will put pants and a t-shirt on their girls but not a bow or dress on their son. They think it is degrading because they think being a girl is degrading. Sad but true.
Girls are great :)
about 9 months ago
As a parent, I used to struggle with the role model I was for my children (2 boys and 1 girl). What does it mean to be male or female? I actually raised my children (who are now 24, 22 and 19) to be happy in whatever they do. Eventually I realised that this is the best lesson I can teach them. My youngest is quite possibly gay, and if he is, I have no place in imposing on him any view I might have about his sexuality. I love my children because they are my children.