Score One for Feminism

Looking over the toys we’ve gotten our daughter for her second birthday and Christmas, I can’t help but notice: it’s all awfully girly. I always prided myself on being something of a tomboy, because people seemed to value that, but I was never quite as interested in boy stuff as I was in my girlish playthings. I loved to play with dolls, kitchen toys, and beautiful, sparkling jewels plastic. I have fond memories of a lovely (to me) princess dress and dirty-faced dolls whose hair I braided and combed with great love. So why am I so taken aback by the amount of girl stuff I want to give my little girl? I love this stuff! She loves this stuff!

I have two boys who are older than Audrey. They play cars, fight imaginary wars, and build amazing things with their blocks. Then they blow them up. I have never, even once, thought “Oh, gosh, they’re acting an awful lot like men. I guess I’d better get them an easy-bake oven.” Not that they would be completely disinterested in an easy-bake oven. I don’t discourage that kind of play, as long as they enjoy it. Nor do I worry about it when they play with their sister’s dolls. They’ll be fantastic cooks and daddies. They don’t shun the gentler, more feminine toys, but they are much more strongly attracted to the masculine things. Surprise! They’re boys!

But that little woman-child who nurses her doll when I nurse my baby (so funny!), gets a washcloth and washes my cabinets while I wash my countertops, and stays right beside me at the table while I teach her older brothers, quietly coloring her princess coloring book? I catch myself thinking “Maybe this is too much girl stuff. Maybe that play kitchen, along with the dolls, doll-carriers, and the cookie-making play set are just a little overboard. It’s almost like I’m training her to be just a mommy.”

There’s that stupid phrase again. “Just mommy.” Try not to say it with a sneer.

Why is that I can’t get over feeling like I shouldn’t suggest that other women, even my own daughter, would be equally happy in this role? No matter how sure I am that there is nothing more rewarding that a woman can do than give her best years to being  just a mommy, I still feel the sting of knowing that this role isn’t considered important enough for an intelligent woman to devote herself to. Even worse, I am keenly aware that my being here, doing what I do, is considered by some to be “letting down the team”. And I find myself playing along with the presumption that other things are more fulfilling, and that it would be more efficient to outsource my children’s upbringing so that I can “contribute to society”.

Knowing as I do the emptiness of “equality”, and the sweet fullness of home life, how can I have such a strongly negative reaction to it when I see my girl pretending to roll out dough for biscuits or put her dollies to bed? It’s adorable, and sweet, and womanly.

And I recoil from it.

I guess I learned my lesson about equality–first from a teacher who didn’t think mommy was a very good job, then from the wider culture–a little too well. I learned that to choose the home is to choose weakness–a pathetic retreat from reality not to be contemplated by a strong and able woman. To choose to be outside the home is to choose the path of strength and dignity. To encourage my daughter to stay home is to encourage her to rely on some *spit* man and waste her time changing diapers and cooking.

I know better than all that, of course. I know that these things are lies, but I have been trained to be prejudiced against traditional gender (stupid word) roles. I have been trained so well that I feel like I’m doing something subversive in allowing my little girl to follow her natural interest in womanly things. Great job, feminists. I must say, you’ve been astonishingly successful. You’ve abused women like me for so long that we’ve learned to believe we deserve it.