by Robyn Ryle
Unlike contemporary American masculinity, neither of these ideals includes anything about being violent, or even particularly competitive. The Heroic Artisan is physically strong, but he uses that strength in the service of honest work. There’s also no sense that masculinity necessitates the accumulation of a lot of wealth. The Genteel Patriarch was wealthy, but no one expected him to focus exclusively on making more money. These models of ideal masculinity began to change in the nineteenth century, as men felt more pressure to be economically successful and compete with each other. Both of these forms of masculinity demonstrate how what it means to be a man changes and shifts over time.
To explore a different gender path, TURN BACK TO 2.
52
What it means to be masculine changes across times and places, which means that gender socialization looks different depending on where and when you are. The tricky thing about gender socialization, though, is that it works so well that we forget that gender could be any other way besides the particular version we’re taught. We assume that the things we believe about gender here and now have always been true and are true for everyone around the world. The truth is that the way you live your gender—the things that seem perfectly normal to you—will look really weird to someone who lives gender in a different way.
If you’re a boy born in the contemporary United States, there’s a certain version of masculinity that’s taken for granted by you and most everyone around you. There are, in fact, rules for manhood that are in place. Four rules, to be specific. The first is “no sissy stuff allowed,” which is pretty self-explanatory. As a boy in the contemporary United States, you’re never supposed to act like a girl or be feminine in any way. The second rule tells you to “give ’em hell,” which means that boys should be competitive risk-takers. It’s okay for boys to get in fights, and it might even be expected. “Be a sturdy oak” is the third rule, and it has to do with emotions. Namely, don’t show them. Be stoic. Boys don’t cry. Finally, “be a big wheel” tells boys and men to be economically successful. Make a lot of money, because he who dies with the most toys wins.
These rules help dictate which of your behaviors people will reward or punish as you’re socialized into masculinity. Playing with trucks or imitating action heroes are behaviors you’re likely to be rewarded for—both activities fit with the give-’em-hell ideal. The rewards you receive for conforming to these rules of masculinity can be obvious or not so obvious. Maybe your parents will tell you that you’re a good boy when you pretend to be Superman. Or maybe they just laugh when you crash your trucks into each other. You’re likely to get punished when you do things that boys aren’t supposed to do—girly things. If you cradle a doll like it’s your baby, your parent might scold you for playing with a girl toy, because it violates the rule that says no sissy stuff for you. If you’re too afraid of the ball hitting you in the face to catch it, your parents and others might tell you to be a big boy. Boys, after all, are supposed to be stoic with their emotions and never show fear.
The process of socializing you into masculinity will start early for you as a boy. Your parents will be less likely to comfort you as an infant when you cry if you’re a son than if you’re a daughter. They’ll give you more instructions, as opposed to talking more conversationally to girls. The family stories they tell you will emphasize independence and autonomy, while the tales they tell girls will be all about emotions. Your family will be more likely to play with you in aggressive and challenging ways as a boy. And you’ll get a different set of household chores.
You’ve been assigned a boy at birth and you’re being socialized as a boy. That doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily end up feeling like a boy on the inside. Gender as a system is set up with the assumption that your gender assignment and your gender identity should match. In other words, the way you feel about who you are is the same as the gender you were told you are at birth. That’s how gender is supposed to work, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best way or even that it works all the time.
Your gender assignment and your gender identity match up. GO TO 71.
Your gender assignment and your gender identity don’t match. GO TO 72.
53
Ideas about what it means to be masculine change from one place to another. In the contemporary United States, boys are never supposed to hold hands, let alone hug or kiss each other. Boys or men who show affection for each other are likely to be called sissies or labeled gay. But in many Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures, it’s perfectly acceptable for grown men to hold hands in public. It’s okay for men to greet each other by kissing cheeks. No one’s likely to label these men sissies or gay, because that’s not how masculinity is constructed in these societies.
What gender socialization looks like depends on the culture you find yourself in. The anthropologist Margaret Mead suspected that this was true, though at the time that she was doing her research in the early twentieth century, the predominant view was that gender was hardwired. Most people, including other anthropologists, believed that what it meant to be a man was unchanging and the same everywhere. Mead went to Papua New Guinea, an island in the southwestern Pacific, in part to examine how various groups on the island had different ideas about gender. One of those groups was the Arapesh tribe.
If you lived among the Arapesh, you would find that few personality distinctions are drawn between men and women—there’s little sense that men are like this and women are like that. The qualities that are most valued among the Arapesh are gentleness and nonaggression. These qualities are equally valued for men and women.
So as a boy being gender socialized among the Arapesh, you’ll learn to be maternal, gentle, responsive, and nonaggressive. You’ll be rewarded for taking care of your siblings and punished for fighting. You will grow up with a set of expectations for masculinity that, from the perspective of a person from the contemporary United States, would be described as feminine.
To explore a different gender path, TURN BACK TO 2.
54
Social learning tells us that we learn to be feminine or masculine through being rewarded or punished for certain types of behaviors. Could you use the same system of punishments and rewards to learn something besides femininity and masculinity? Could socialization be used to unmake gender instead of reinforcing it? And what would that look like if it were possible?
You might be born to parents who have decided to try to raise you gender neutral, and if so, you’d be among a growing number of similar families. There are whole Facebook groups dedicated to gender-neutral parenting. If you’re born in Sweden, you can even attend a gender-neutral preschool called Egalia. Parents like yours use different strategies, but one method is to not disclose your gender to anyone outside of your family—the idea being that this is the only way to prevent other people from interacting with you in a gendered way. You’ll probably have a gender-neutral name, like Star or Storm. Your parents might use gender-neutral pronouns like “ze” or “they,” both of which can be used in place of ‘he’ and ‘she.’ Your parents will work hard not to reward or punish any behaviors based on whether they’re right or appropriate for your gender. So crying when you get hurt and playing with a baby doll will be okay, as will getting dirty and playing with trucks. You’ll be able to wear whatever you want—dress, skirt, glittery barrette, or shorts—in whatever color you want, from pink or blue to everything in between. The thinking behind gender-neutral parenting is that children don’t really know what their gender is when they’re born, so why should everyone try to impose one on them?
If you’re born someplace like Sweden, the larger culture might support your family’s decision to raise you as a gender-neutral child. In addition to having a gender-neutral preschool, Sweden has made a gender-neutral pronoun (“hen”) an official part of the Swedish language. Many psychologists and parenting experts argue that raising gender-neutral children like you can be a good thing. You’re not forced to fit yourself into the particular
box of boy or girl, and this can give you more room to realize your full potential, making you a healthier and happier child.
In other places, your family might be criticized for their attempts to avoid gender socialization for you. They might be accused of indoctrinating you or inflicting psychological harm. People on this side argue that being raised gender-neutral is too confusing for children, who need the safety and comfort of having a gender identity.
Because raising gender-neutral children is a relatively new phenomenon and still limited to a small number of families, there’s not a lot of research to tell us what the short- and long-term effects of being raised gender-neutral might be. One study does suggest that giving children gendered toys prevents them from developing their full range of interests, preferences, and talents. As a gender-neutral child, then, you’ll have more freedom to figure out who you are and what you like.
So being raised as a gender-neutral child might give you a head start in life. What happens next? Can you live your whole life as a gender-neutral person?
You feel like you’re a girl. GO TO 39.
You feel like you’re a boy. GO TO 40.
You feel like you’re neither a boy nor a girl. GO TO 18.
55
You’re white and your gender identity, gender assignment, and gender expression all line up. That means that you feel like a boy on the inside, you’re labeled a boy, and you act like a boy. You like the color blue and playing sports and crashing into things. When you walk, you splay your feet to the side with lots of space between your legs, so you walk like a boy. When you sit, you spread out your arms and legs to take up as much space as possible. You “manspread,” as some people might say, a very masculine way of being in the world. You smile like a boy (less often than girls) and you talk like a boy (interrupting and changing the topic of conversation more). It’s a long list of things you’re supposed to do in order to act like a boy. You might lose track sometimes, but maybe you successfully keep your gender identity, your gender assignment, and your gender expression perfectly lined up. What do you win for this amazing feat?
As a white boy, conforming to all these rules of masculinity will earn you a lot of benefits. You get called a big boy. Or a little man. Eventually, you’re just called a man. But even as a little boy, you’re given more space on the playground. When you act out in class, the teacher is likely to excuse your behavior as “just boys being boys.” As you grow up, a lot of your behaviors might fall under this label, and you’ll learn that a lot of things that aren’t okay for girls or for boys of other racial backgrounds are more likely to be okay for you. Even as a little boy, you start to reap a patriarchal dividend, which means that you get rewarded for being a boy and lining up with all the rules for how boys are supposed to act. It’ll be easier for you to cash in on that patriarchal dividend as a white boy. Which is cool. Does that mean you’re winning this whole gender game?
The sad truth is that it’s very hard to win at this game of gender. It actually may be impossible. As a white boy, you’ll have privileges, or benefits, that you didn’t have to do anything to get. Those same privileges might not be available to girls or boys from other racial backgrounds, but even as a white boy, there’s a price to pay for those benefits. You’re not allowed to cry, even when things hurt or you feel sad. You might feel that it’s only okay to be physically affectionate with other boys when you’re playing sports—a quick slap on the butt or punch on the shoulder. You’ll feel pressure to see girls and women as objects rather than people, so you might find it hard to have intimate, caring relationships with them—or with other boys and men, for that matter. As a white boy, you’ll have power, but it comes with a cost.
PRIVILEGE
n. /ˈpriv-lij/
An unearned right or immunity granted as a benefit, advantage, or favor.
GO TO 40.
56
You’re born in Syria, a country with a fairly high level of gender inequality. According to the UN’s most current Gender Inequality Index, your country ranks 149 out of 188 countries, and on the Global Gender Gap Index, you’re 142 out of 144.
The extreme violence and chaos in your country certainly contributes to factors like the maternal mortality ratio, or the percentage of women who die from pregnancy-related causes. In Syria, women die of pregnancy-related causes in 68 out of every 100,000 live births. Like Ruqayya, a woman from northeastern Syria, you might find yourself forced to flee the fighting and violence, seeking refuge in one of the many displacement camps set up for those trying to escape the civil war. Ruqayya was pregnant when she arrived at Al-Areesheh camp, which holds between 3,500 and 4,000 displaced people but has no brick-and-mortar health facility. When Ruqayya went into labor and needed an urgent C-section, there were no medical facilities available in the camp. Fortunately, Ruqayya and her baby both survived, but many pregnant women in displacement camps in Syria lack access to prenatal care, postpartum services, and newborn care. In these circumstances, it’s not surprising to find a greater percentage of women dying from pregnancy-related causes.
Some of the other countries you might find yourself in with high levels of gender inequality include Afghanistan, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, and Yemen. These countries have much worse maternal mortality rates than Syria does; in Chad, for instance, women die in 856 out of every 100,000 live births. The rate of teenage pregnancies in Syria is also fairly low; 39 out of every 1,000 women between the ages of fifteen and nineteen give birth. But even in a country with a low teenage pregnancy rate, the average age at which women marry and have their first child can be low. Reports suggest that, in Syria, one response to the violence has been to force more girls into marriage before the age of eighteen. This matters because, across the globe, when women have children at younger ages, it decreases their likelihood of getting more education and, therefore, of having a paid job, especially a decent paid job. Thus, it makes gender equality harder to achieve. Like Ruqayya, you’ll find being pregnant much more hazardous to your health. You’ll be less likely to get secondary education (schooling past the primary or elementary level); 35 percent of women in Syria have achieved at least some secondary education, compared to 43 percent of men. You’ll work, but your work will probably not be in the formal labor market, and you’re therefore less likely to be paid or paid well. Only 12 percent of women in your country are working for pay, compared to 71 percent of men.
These inequalities in education and job market participation also mean less gender equality in positions of power. As far as measures of political participation go, only 12 percent of the seats in the Syrian parliament are occupied by women.
Gender inequality will be important to your experience of gender. So will gender socialization. Gender socialization is the process of learning how to fit into the particular gender to which you’ve been assigned. Who does that socializing is important, so you need to know who’s going to spend most of her or his time taking care of you. You need to know who your primary caregiver is going to be.
Your primary caregiver is a woman. GO TO 34.
Your primary caregiver is a man. GO TO 35.
Your primary caregiver is a group of people. GO TO 26.
57
You’re born in the United States, a country with medium levels of gender inequality. According to the UN’s most current Gender Inequality Index, your country ranks 43 out of 188 countries, while on the Global Gender Gap Index, you’re 49 out of 144.
In the United States, you have one of the worst rates of women dying from pregnancy-related complications in the developed world. For every 100,000 live births in the United States, 14 women die of pregnancy-related causes. Unlike other countries in the developed world, the maternal mortality rate in your country is rising, rather than declining. As a mother in the United States, you’re three times as likely as your Canadian neighbors and six times as likely as Scandinavian women to die during the maternal period (the time between the start of your pregnancy and one year after th
e delivery of your baby or termination of the pregnancy). If you’re African American, low-income, or live in a rural area, your chances of dying from pregnancy-related causes increase. But women of all races and income levels, living in diverse geographical areas, are vulnerable. There are lots of factors that explain why it’s increasingly dangerous for you to give birth in the United States, including uneven access to health care, as well as government funding being directed away from maternal care.
Even with the record number of women elected to Congress in 2018 (including the first Native American women and first Muslim American women ever to be elected), your country still isn’t doing as well as other countries in women’s representation in the government. As far as measures of empowerment go, only 22 percent of the seats in the United States legislature are occupied by women. The United States ranks ninety-ninth globally in terms of the percentage of women in the legislature, which puts you roughly in the middle. As of this writing, there are 23 women in the Senate (out of 100 total senators) and more than 100* are projected to win a seat in the House of Representatives (out of 435 total representatives).
Some of the other countries with medium levels of gender inequality include Hungary, Latvia, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Slovakia, and the United Arab Emirates. Some of these are developing countries, like Malaysia, and others are developed countries, like Hungary.