Girls and Dolls

One professor's musings on toys and gender roles as a mother gave me food for thought.

I believed that if I dressed her in overalls, cut her hair as short as a boy’s, and gave her trucks instead of Barbies, she’d end up a nuclear physicist. I got my comeuppance right away. Among her first words were, “What’s that?” We had just passed a desultory-looking store window in downtown L.A. She was in her stroller, firmly pointing her pudgy index finger at a sorry-looking Barbie, alone and dusty, sitting atop a tower of toilet paper.

What this means is that, much as parents wish they could have control over how their children grow up seeing themselves, it's impossible to shut out every influence on children except the ones you want. Ultimately, there's more at work than parenting. This means feminists have a lot of work to do.