I was an unusual kid. I played dress-up, often using safety pins and a collection of old jewelry and scarves to help change to form of the clothes to match whatever game I was playing. That led to a brief period of designing my own fashions and trying to learn to sew. I had a few Barbies that I liked to style. I had a pretty nice play kitchen and I held tea parties.
But I also had boxes I’d turned into sailing ships, race cars, and computers. I had action figures from Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and M.A.S.K. I would run around with my cousins, water gun in hand, and play Transformers. After school, I’d spread my books out on my parents’ bed and worked on my homework while I watched Silverhawks and Thundercats.
I graduated from my play kitchen to a weather station, a planetarium projector, and a telescope.
I was lucky. My parents didn’t worry about whether or not certain toys were appropriate for their daughter. They let me explore and play with those things I enjoyed. If that meant I wanted Victorian Barbie to lead an army of Joes, so be it! I was a child having fun.
It’s bizarre, but twenty years after I stopped playing with my Barbies and action figures, I routinely have to defend my cartoon choices to some of my girl students because they’re just mortified that I watch cartoons their brothers enjoy. (They aren’t bothered by the fact that I’m a thirtysomething who still loves to watch cartoons.) The boys I teach feel they have to apologize for liking anything on the Disney Channel.
This shouldn’t be. Somehow, it feels like we’re still caught in this time warp where little girls play house with their dollies and boys raze everything in sight with their toy trucks. As I said earlier, it’s not as bad as it was when I first started teaching, but it’s still there and it does still shape how my teenagers and the young adults in my life think.
Girls should be able to choose what kinds of games they want to play without having stereotypes forced on them.
Boys should be able to choose what kinds of games they want to play without having stereotypes forced on them.
