If you’re just joining us on the blog after a bit
of an absence, you may notice that the place looks a little bit different.
After a year of having the same design, logo, and
colour scheme, I decided that this week was the week that we would switch
things up a bit. Don’t worry,
though. Unlike Facebook, which changes
its design more often than some people change their jockey shorts, the new look
will be sticking around for some time.
It was hard to say goodbye to the old logo that
was crafted by hand by yours truly. I
made it with the utmost of care, joy, and blue and pink gel pens. But, as we transition into the second year of
the blog, I decided that I wanted to make it appear more professional
looking. So, gone went the pink and
blue, and in came the yellow and purple.
I think it turned out decently.
I also experimented with computer paint shop
programs, and designed an improved logo using the new colour scheme. I’m not usually that skilled in computer
graphic designs, but I think the new logo turned out better than I
expected. I also tweaked the font style
of the main heading a smidgen to match the logo a bit. But, the rest of the layout is exactly the
same. I didn’t want to change things too
much.
I’m not going to let a silly little thing like
being blocked by a social networking site stop me from sharing my thoughts and
life lessons with the world. If
anything, I have a feeling that this next year will be the best yet.
So, now that we have that out of the way, we can
begin with today’s Thursday Confessional.
THURSDAY
CONFESSION #22:
I don’t believe in the concept of gender roles, and believe that people
who force children to adhere to certain gender-based stereotypes are doing more
harm than good to them.
I don’t know if you noticed this, but I am a
man. Of course, I don’t really know too
many women with the first name of Matthew, but I just wanted to clarify
that. And, of course, I do like a lot of
things that were manufactured for boys.
I played with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and He-Man action figures, Hot
Wheels cars, and was addicted to the various video game consoles of my youth.
But if you were to look at my last week of topics,
they aren’t exactly considered to be male-friendly. With my blog covering Jem and the Holograms and
my not-so-secret desire to own an Easy-Bake Oven, some people may accuse me of
having given up my so-called “man card”.
Well, you know what? I say let them keep thinking that way. I don’t particularly care.
I mean, yes, back when I was a kid, I rarely
watched Jem and the Holograms, because I was lead to believe that it was a
cartoon for girls. And, yes, certainly
the dolls that Hasbro released as a companion piece to the cartoon were meant
to be marketed for young girls. But when
I watched old episodes of the series to do research on the blog entry, I found
that for all the glamour and glitz the show had, there was also a lot of action
and suspense. And, hey, the music from
that show was infinitely better than some of the garbage that passes as Top 40
radio these days.
And, my desire for an Easy-Bake Oven was simply to
satisfy my sweet tooth. I didn’t care if
it was completely pink and decorated in flowers. I just wanted it to eat all the mini-cakes I
wanted.
I know that I don’t have to justify why I choose
the blog topics that I do (though admittedly I did just this once to help
explain my confession for today). When I
began this blog a little over a year ago, my intention was to have a variety of
topics from different eras, and for different groups of people, so that
everyone in the world could find something to enjoy. As long as I keep writing in this blog, I’ll
continue to make it this way.
But if I admit to wanting a toy marketed for
girls, or liking some aspects of a cartoon marketed for girls, I wouldn’t
classify that as being a sissy, or weak.
Yet, you see it all the time in school playgrounds
and on the streets. You see boys getting
made fun of for wearing a pink shirt, or because they like to play with Barbie
dolls. On the flipside, you might see
girls being made fun of for wanting to play football, or choosing to play with
a tool box instead of a jewelry box.
My honest opinion is that I believe that boys and
girls should be able to play with whatever they want to play, or wear whatever
they want to wear, or watch whatever they want to watch without the fear of bullying
or abuse by people who disagree with their interests.
I have a couple of examples of this that I wish to
share with you on the subject. One
example is a fictional one from a Saturday Morning live-action series that
aired. The other one is a real life
example that hit the media a couple of years ago. In both cases, the subjects had a keen
interest in something that was atypical for their gender, and in both cases,
the subjects were subject to much scrutiny.
Yet, both of them prevailed, and ended up not only surviving the abuse,
but persevering in the process.
We’ll start off with the fictional character
first.
I don’t know how many of you remember a show
called “Hang Time” on television. My
guess is not a lot of you do. The show
aired as part of the TNBC programming block on the NBC network. It debuted in 1995 and ran for six seasons,
concluding its run in December 2000. The
show itself was set at a high school in Deering, Indiana, and the main plot
surrounded the school’s basketball team.
Basketball player Reggie Theus and football player Dick Butkus had
regular roles in the series, and athletes such as Damon Stoudamire, Kobe
Bryant, and the late Florence Griffith-Joyner made guest appearances on the
show. The show itself was sandwiched
between two episodes of Saved By The Bell: The New Class, but if one were to
watch the show closely, it had its own distinct identity...or at least it did
the first couple of seasons anyway.
When we’re first introduced to the Deering
Tornadoes, the basketball team is just being formed, and Coach Fuller was
anxious to assemble a team of nothing but the best guys in Deering High School.
So when new student Julie Connor decides to try
out for the team, Coach Fuller and the majority of the players think that she’s
playing a joke. The school had the
attitude that boys played basketball, and girls stood on the sidelines waving
pom poms and yelling “Go Deering!”, a stereotype that head cheerleader Mary
Beth Pepperton was more than willing to keep going. But Julie was determined to try out for the
team. As she told Samantha, who was then
the equipment manager for the team, she had been playing basketball since she
was a little girl, and it was all that she wanted to do. Unfortunately, with no girls basketball team
at Deering, all hope was lost.
That is until Samantha helped Julie by convincing Coach
Fuller to let Julie try out for the boys team.
Most of the boys on the team scoffed at the idea, but eventually most
came around. Of course, at the time
Samantha was dating one of the team members, so I imagine she had a hand in
making him convince the others that Julie would be an asset. The captain of the team, Chris Atwater still
wasn’t convinced that she would fit in, and it took a one-on-one match between
Chris and Julie to make Chris see that she had some major skills.
Long story short, Julie ended up making the team,
eventually became a co-captain of the Deering Tornadoes, and ended up getting a
special award for the dedication and natural athletic ability when she
graduated. The show itself proved that a
girl could succeed in the world of male sports, and I imagine that a lot of
girls who watched the show were inspired by Julie Connor.
I just wish the show touched upon the discrepancy in that Julie ended up spending SIX YEARS in high school...but hey, the show wasn’t perfect.
I just wish the show touched upon the discrepancy in that Julie ended up spending SIX YEARS in high school...but hey, the show wasn’t perfect.
For our second tale, I want everyone to take a
look at the picture below.
On the surface, it looks like a lovely Halloween
picture, and that’s really the way I see it.
Does it really matter that the person inside that Daphne costume was
really a five-year-old boy?
It doesn’t to me.
But this picture certainly caused a lot of controversy due to the
comments of some people...and it’s not the people who you might think either.
Back in 2010, the mother of this young boy asked
him who he wanted to be for Halloween, and he wanted to dress up like his
favourite character from Scooby-Doo. At
that time, his favourite character was Daphne.
So the mother dressed him up in a flame orange wig, a purple dress, and
purple leggings, and within moments, he was Daphne. It was a very convincing costume, and I
thought that it looked a lot like the cartoon character. Judging by the smile on his face, I think he
definitely approved of it.
And when he wore the costume to his preschool, his
classmates didn’t seem taken aback, nor did they treat him any
differently.
The other mothers at the school playground, not so
much.
The mother of the boy in the Daphne costume was
shocked to hear some of the other mothers talking about his costume in a
negative way. One mother even accused
the boy’s mother of opening him up to ridicule and teasing for dressing him
that way.
It broke her heart to hear those women (who in my
opinion really should have known better) saying such closed-minded and cruel
things about her son, and by extension, herself just because of the choice of
Halloween costume. Yes, the choice of a
Daphne costume was an inspired one for the five-year-old boy, but it was what
he wanted to be.
And you notice that the children weren’t the ones
who found it to be a big issue. Instead,
it was their parents who felt it necessary to bully and demean someone that
they didn’t know because they crossed a gender line.
You know what, there’s absolutely nothing wrong
with a boy dressing up as a female for Halloween. And, there’s nothing wrong with a girl
wanting to play on a boys sports team.
As long as it makes the child happy, and as long as they’re growing up
with a sense of knowing what is right and what is wrong, does it make a
difference whether they play with a Barbie doll or a Tonka truck?
It shouldn’t.
If I had a son, and he wanted to dress up like Ariel from the Little
Mermaid, I’d personally buy the red wig myself for him. Or if I had a daughter, and she wanted to
attend a monster truck rally, I’d sit down in the audience right beside her
with pride. Oh, and those people who
claim that letting a boy play with dolls will turn them gay, or letting a girl
playing football will turn them into a lesbian...I personally would like to see
proof that this is the case. And, even
if it was the case, there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
So, I say, let your son bake cookies in an
Easy-Bake Oven and let your daughter play football with the guys. If it makes them happier, better people, then
isn’t that all that matters?