Devaluing Daughters

If you're interested in reading a refreshing burst of honesty today, you could do worse than Aaron Traister's piece about the different reactions he received from people when he told them he was expecting a son and when he told them, a couple years later, that he was expecting a daughter. Americans tend to think we're above the prejudices that drive people in China and India to use sex-selective abortion, but, as Traister's piece shows, we're far from the angels we'd like to pretend we are. In fact, it seems we start the process of giving little girls an inferiority complex before they even have a chance to be born.

Reading Traister's piece, I was never so glad that I never had a brother. I recall, as a small kid and even as a teenager, feeling like I benefited from not having a boy around to suck all the oxygen of adult attention out of the room. My father never seem resigned to having girls, but he did do stuff with us that I feel we wouldn't have had a chance to do if a boy had been there to do it instead. I was put to work in the woodshop, in the yard, on the car. The seeds of a budding feminist were planted in the boy vacuum. Being able to do son things because there is no son means learning that you can do all sorts of things our society generally discourages in women. It doesn't seem to me an accident that now I can find myself in my backyard with a female friend (also brotherless), building garden structures on a Saturday without feeling even the slightest need to call my boyfriend out to do the hard work.

Traister's article only confirmed some of my suspicions. He relates how, compared with the reactions when he announced his first-born's maleness, people reacted to the news about his soon-to-be-born baby girl on a range from muted enthusiasm to open contempt for girls. Nothing he relates will be foreign to most readers; we're all aware of stereotypes about how girls are harder, girls are more shallow, girls are just a disappointment. But I found it revelatory the way that Traister cheekily reminds us how these messages seep into the minds of girls, so that they know how much less wanted they really are. And how damaging that message really can be.

Growing up brotherless, I think I can see why people view girls as a disappointment. Having no boys to focus on, male father figures in my life went out of their way to put male expectations on me. I was told, by male adults, to delay marriage and childbearing until I had a career under way, and that I should bust my ass at school and not let anyone tell me that I was less than. In India and China, part of the hostility to daughters is the sense that you are raising someone else's family. In India, the dowry system even means you have to pay someone else to take the girl off your hands. But in a muted way, perhaps Americans still think having a girl means running the risk of raising someone else's wife. Perhaps with boys, we feel more assured that the child in front of us could grow up to be a doctor or a scientist or a famous athlete.

Or course, girls can grow up to be all those things, can't they? It's true, but also true that we're far from expressing equal enthusiasm, as Traister discovers when a friend of his who has gone through the hell of keeping a baby with a birth defect alive crows about how he at least doesn't have to put up with a girl. Everyone Traister spoke to talked about the other shoe dropping—oh, girls are good when they're young, but wait until they're teenagers. This sort of thinking reflects the ugly truth about diminishing returns for girls and women in our culture. Everyone knows about how girls make better grades on average than boys, and more women matriculate and graduate from college than men. But somehow, women still earn less coming out of college, and every year they work they fall behind their male colleagues doing the same jobs. Parents just get less return on their girl investment.

But disparaging female children is exactly the wrong way to fix the problem. The reason women work harder and get paid less is partially sexism, and partially women's lack of entitlement due to lower self-esteem. We put our noses to the grindstone, never try to draw attention to ourselves by asking for more, and suffer from imposter syndrome. Many of us are easily convinced that our jobs are less important than our husbands', so if someone has to cut back for family reasons, it's almost always a woman. And part of the reason probably goes back to what Traister observed—when you're told that you're less valuable than boys from the day you're born, you begin to believe it.

Tags: children, feminism, sexism

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Amanda Marcotte Amanda recently moved from her home state of Texas to Brooklyn, NY. She blogs at pandagon.net and rhrealitycheck.org.

Comments

Kierra's response to my comment

By: klbrewer | Fri, 11/20/2009 - 16:33

Kierra, that's an excellent point; my mother's friends might have said something like that to her in private (and probably did, as you suggest). But no one seems to mind making the comment about sons in front of my daughters, one of whom, granted, is a baby, but the other quite clearly walks and talks and understands the English language.

It's All Relative

By: linzonein | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 12:46

Hmm... I don't think the author approached this subject from a properly objective viewpoint to do anything but stir controversy regarding her theory's "universal truth", instead of shedding light on the derogatory remarks made by SOME men (and women) and how it affects the values and roles those women play in society.

Whether a reader feels anger and conviction of the truth of the subject matter or outrage in it's fallacy, it's all relative to the individual's situation and of course not everyone is going to agree.

Not every woman was opressed and looked-down upon by the men in their lives, but also, not every woman was treated in the same manner as their brothers were. I remember knowing I was a girl when I was very young. Not for any physiological reasons (I didn't understand there were any at the time), but because I was told it was so, informed of my place and what was expected of me and had these ideas reinforced through the actions of my parents and the people around me for most of my life.

I still did the "boy stuff". I was even taught some of the boy stuff from my dad, but I was also taught that since I'm a girl and physically matured at a relatively young age, that I was no longer loved or valuable once I no longer looked like "daddy's little girl". I didn't become sexually active until years later, but my father stopped making eye contact with me (or speaking to me much) after the age of 12. I didn't feel any different inside, but everyone (not just my parents) treated me differently. Most of it wasn't very pleasant. I learned to hate being a woman, to hate and fear men, and eventually to hate other women. It took years to realize how skewed my perspective was.

However, I realize not every woman's experience is the same as mine. Not every man on the planet wants to objectify their counterparts and grunt about their virility. Men are people too; men are susceptible to the same social cues and inadvertant brainwashing we all subject each other to and there are lots of 'em out there who feel the same as we do, but from their side of the fence.

Wasn't that horrifying

By: buggie | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 12:44

Wasn't that horrifying article in Marie Claire (?) about "gender disappointment" all about how people WANT girls these days because it's easier to raise a successful girl than boy, what with girls outperforming boys in school, having higher college matriculation rates, being able to do "boy things" like sports and "girl things" like cooking without the stigma boys have when they cross traditional gender lines?

the being said, I have an extremely successful and talented younger brother, but like the author here, I was always taught to "bust my ass in school," and to build a career. In fact, I don't think my parents ever made the assumption that I would get married or have children when it came to practical considerations (I think emotionally they still assume this is going to happen, but they've never really let it get involved in my "life choice" situations). I think birth order may be just as important in gender in terms of these things. As the oldest, I was taught to always be responsible, take care of myself, etc. My father never did yard work or fixed things himself, if anything my mother did that stuff, so it was never assumed that my brother would learn things over me. I think both of us are equally capable of these things as adults. I also think that what you do as a teenager has a major impact on how your parents think of these things. I never dated as a teenager. I don't think I had a "real boyrfiend-boyfriend" until my late 20s, so my parents always saw me as independent rather than someone's future wife. People may have these preconceived ideas about female children, but those female children can still rise above and prove them wrong.

"yucky girl baby"...is this

By: phpeter | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 12:22

"yucky girl baby"...is this auther 16? My first child is a daughter and my second, a son, was born 8 weeks ago. Honestly, nobody was as blatent or stupid as this guys friends, but I have to say people do react as if I have accomplished something by having a boy. I disagree, of course. I have never meant a father of a daughter who didn't enjoy the fullness of the experience, the difference is part of the fun and they would never disparage that relationship or make remarks like that. Let me also say that just because a father is elated to have a son, it is exclusive from any feelings regarding a daughter...if one goes up, the other does not by default go down. There is great joy and happieness in very different ways. That is the fun of raising a boy and a girl.

Like the author, I also grew

By: fsu07 | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 11:55

Like the author, I also grew up in a home with no brothers. Instead I was taught to do all of the physical and athletic things normally taught to boys. Helping my dad doing home repairs taught me basic plumbing, electrical, some construction and tiling. My sister on the other hand learned cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. Now, partially it's because she does actually enjoy cooking and sewing (she made her own prom dresses from her own patterns), but all of those things drive me up the wall. If I have a choice between running a 5K or cooking a holiday meal, I'll run. All of this being said, I constantly have to explain that, "No thank you, I can take care of it myself" and am frequently met with the response, "Oh, just call your boyfriend, he'll take care of things". I think that the pervasive mentality still is that girls need someone to help/rescue them. Even if it didn't occur in my family (I actually kind of wish I had been encouraged to learn "feminine" tasks earlier, maybe my cooking would be better) I still experience the gender bias. As a college student, I find that men are intimidated by a competent woman. I hate to think what life will be like after college.

what an incredibly poorly thought out article

By: dougcachet | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 11:15

There's probably 100 million dads in the U.S. and the author found 1 Dad who has some guy friends that like baby boys better than baby girls. And this is supposed to prove the author's theory the girls are being devalued as a result ? I found a mom with a baby girl and most of her girlfriends have been pretty excited she had a baby girl. Now the mom will get to do all the traditional "girly stuff" with a daughter, the clothes shopping, the dancing classes, etc. Perhaps, I should write an article, as a result, about how parents, or at least moms, are devaluing boys. A problem with the author making-up this pretend problem is that it takes some attention away from the many serious, real problems girls & woman face throughout the world including the very real plight of girls in India & China. For the record, I'm a Dad to an almost 4 year old girl & a 9 month old boy and my own father, well he pretty much just worked 70 hours a week and yelled at me a lot.

yes, akwoman, I read it

By: carrot | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 10:36

How else would I have quoted it? I even read all of the comments on both of them. I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to call people jerks whenever I want, but thanks for double-checking that.

Hey Dad, maybe trench digging is better left to the boys

By: Aurora | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 10:32

For what it is worth my parents had 2 girls and 2 boys. My little brothers are 10 and 12 years younger than my sister and I, so we spent most of our early childhood in a house with no boys. I've done all sorts of things that this piece would presume would be things that would be in the territory of my brothers. Drywalling, pipe fitting, I was even the lucky one who got to help dig out the foundation. Now some of these things happened before my brothers were old enough to be of any help. Both of them were still in diapers when Dad and I were cracking drywall over our heads trying to redo the celing in the bathroom, but I'm still the one who gets called when dad wants to lay wire or needs an additional set of hands to cut pipe for his wind turbine, even though I live over an hour away and my now teenage little brothers are perfectly willing and able to help (well the younger of the two anyway.) Wind turbine not withstanding, my parents are moderately conservative in the very conservative midwest, so we can chuck out all of those notions that this sort of gender blindness is an east-coast-liberal sort of a thing. Assuming that my experiences and those of others in the comments are an equally valid counter to Traister's, can we chalk this up to another semi-bogus trend?

ummm carrot....did you even

By: akwoman | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 10:00

ummm carrot....did you even read the two articles. i congratulate you on how wonderful your family is, but you should definitely read both articles before calling the authors jerks.

heard the opposite many times

By: bossgirl | Tue, 11/17/2009 - 09:55

I have a little girl who is 15 months old, and plenty of people have commented to me how well behaved she is and ahead developmentally and relate the comments to her being a girl. Boys are always slower, more rambunctious etc.. People have theories on everything about pregnancy/parenting and insist on sharing them.. I've just learned to ignore them..