Those of you who know me, know I don’t give two shits about “Gender Roles”. In my house, my wife works the long hours and makes the big money that pays the bills, while I work part time, cook, clean, and take care of the baby. By standard gender roles I’m the “Good Wife” and my wife is the “Good Husband”. As for our daughter we have a house full of gender neutral toys. Now we didn’t seek out toys that were gender neutral, its just she can’t play with complex toys yet, and my wife and I really dig animals, and there is NOTHING more gender neutral than animals. Everybody loves cool animals.
Now the other day I dropped LaWeer’da off at Daycare and they gave her a dolly to play with. It was a really cool doll that had a long coat and toys hanging off her that could be suspended by a play gym. Now I already know how the school treats this toy because I’d seen a young boy playing with this doll the other day.
I’m fine with her playing with dolls or play kitchens (which she’ll probably do because she LOVES watching us cook) and vanity toys, just as much as I’d be fine with her playing with trucks and tools. Toy guns I have some reservations because this little girl WILL learn to shoot. I feel having people capable of using a gun and not knowing HOW to use one safely and responsibly, and I don’t think toy guns should be treated differently. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Still I stand this way because I don’t care. I want my girl to have fun when she plays, and whatever is FUN she should play with it. I had a Cabbage Patch doll as a child, but I really liked my stuffed animals better. I liked my action figures, my toy guns, and my toy swords and knives even more. This isn’t because I’m a boy, or whatever, it just turns out I like guns and swords and knives.
I loved the Ninja Turtles! Animals, swords, and action figures! SO COOL!
Now the Progressives are a little more…well Bossy, about it. They don’t want to assign a gender identity or something and don’t like kids playing with gender-typical toys. They encourage ONLY gender neutral toys, or boy toys to girls and girl toys to boys. Well Kinda:
Sadly, 9-year-old Grayson Bruce has gotten used to being bullied. The torment reached new and unbearable levels last week, though, when he showed up to school with a ‘My Little Pony’ lunch bag.
“The first day I brought it to school, people smirked, you know, laughed. The usual, ‘That’s hilarious. Why would you bring that?’” the North Carolina grade-schooler says of the bag, which features the character Rainbow Dash.
In the school yard, though, the abuse turned physical as some of the other kids targeted Grayson for his supposedly “girlie” taste in toys.
“They’re taking it a little too far, with punching me, pushing me down, calling me horrible names, stuff that really shouldn’t happen,” he tells WLOS News13. “Most of the characters in the show are girls, and most of the people put it toward girls, most of the toys are girlie.”
Though the bullies were punished – Grayson says they were made to walk laps – the school went a step further to resolve the issue, reportedly asking that the Rainbow Dash bag be left at home from now on as they worry it’s become a “distraction” and a “trigger for bullying.”
Fuck you in the neck! First up, while My Little Pony these days is slightly skewed to females, it has a HUGE male following. Just ask Erin and McThag!
Plus this is a great lesson on individuality! If you like something the other people like that makes you an individual! Hell since this is a gun blog I’ll note that I carry a 1911 and a Ruger LCR. Now Revolvers and 1911s have really come under fire as “outdated” compared to double-stack polymer pistols, and .357 mag and .45 ACP have gone out of favor for 9x19mm. But I LIKE the setup I have, and I don’t care what others think.
Do I want the teacher to take away my “Outdated” guns? No, and nor should the teachers take this boy’s My Little Pony bag away. Now growing up I made a few fashion choices that I thought were cool, that got me ridiculed by my friends in school. I decided it really wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight and that was the end of that.
There’s a lot to learn in that, and the school did the wrong thing.
H/T Mrs. Weer’d
