May 23, 2022·edited May 23, 2022Liked by Lisa Selin Davis
Your writing is so humane and kind. I just wanted to say how much I appreciated it in a time when a lot of us feel very torn in our feelings, and struggle to explain our concerns. All I want is for kids to grow up as I did, with a belief that - modulo biology - anyone can be any way they want.
I just can’t comprehend how so many people are so willingly going back to such regressive, narrow gender roles. It’s as if the “nice” adults have joined with the playground bullies in telling the gender nonconforming boy, “You’re not a real boy.”
This album was also a staple of my childhood, and I can still sing its songs. My pre-Boomer parents were not 100% sure about it (it was a gift from a younger, hipper relative), but they let us listen, just the same. And being raised in the 70's meant there were lots of earth tone and primary color clothes for both girls and boys. I had few, if any, pinks or pastels in my wardrobe, and legos were just legos. I was a tomboy with an older brother and preferred playing with boys to girls for the early part of my childhood. This was considered completely normal and healthy. How sad that my own daughters have to navigate such a changed set of expectations and messages and feel constrained or judged for not always measuring up to the feminine "ideal"!
Love this. Love that album and Atalanta. Tried to talk with my daughter about this when she first came upon this gender ideology cult, but she was already captured. Keep writing and fighting, Lisa. Thank you.
I grew up with Free to be you and me, also. It just makes sense. I don't know how we raise kids to stay sane when people are running around with these stupid regressive stereotypes. I remember the LEGO for girls being rolled out. You could tell it was for girls because...it was pink. That was ridiculous. Assuming girls follow the stereotype and then "reaching them" by reinforcing it? All huge steps backwards. I keep seeing these attempts to be inclusive where instead of freeing people from gender expectations, they just build on them and lock them in more???
I agree 100 percent with your overall point, but I do want to comment on the part where you point out that women are still underrepresented in politics and that girls drop out of sports. I believe that statistics show that in the most egalitarian countries, where men and women have the narrowest pay gaps and the most equal standing legally, women end up choosing to stay at home and work part time more often than in comparably rich but not as egalitarian countries. Women do have different priorities and likes (on average, of course). I don't have the data for this, but I suspect that a lot of girls choose not to continue with sports because their priorities change, and that's ok. I also suspect more men than women enjoy the competitive and often combative and aggressive side of politics. That's where the difficulty arises oftentimes - in the murkiness of predispositions versus stereotypes.
Thanks for the great conversation. Lots of wonderful insights here. I was particularly interested in the discussion on word choice, eg, gender-affirming as euphemistic, mutilation as too harsh the other way, and ending on bilateral mastectomy (factual and neutral). As someone who had the Hobson’s choice of dying of breast cancer v. Bilateral mastectomy (hopefully for many today there are less drastic choices), I do have, ironically, a problem with the neutral term. While I appreciate where Keig is coming from, there’s a complexity to this that I want to point out. To have to have a bilateral mastectomy in order to avoid dying was a terrible choice. It was not staying over in the hospital, or even undergoing the surgery (which is not that tough for most of us), but rather having to mutilate my body to stay alive. As a friend who had to do the same because of cancer said at the time--if we were men, they would come up with something less horrible than this kind of mutilation. So, for me, the neutral term doesn’t get at what the experience is like. Over time, I have of course learned to live with it, but I really don’t want anyone to think this kind of choice was just fine, and mutilation helps convey that. The other aspect of this that I’d note is breast reconstruction is no panacea. First, the way these surgeries were conducted at the time, the basic breast removal offered no pretense of cosmetic look, even flat-chested. Instead, you were set up to either go with crude scars or undergo often several cosmetic operations to end up with fake breasts without sensation and also potentially problems with silicon implants. I had a friend with advanced cancer who went through this, because she couldn’t bear looking unwomanly. Several surgeries later, she had new fake breasts, and shortly afterward, she died. I feel sad and angry for Keig that societal norms made it untenable for Keig to present as a woman safely, but what I would wish for all of us is that bodily mutilation was not seen as the only way to address this. Let’s change the world, not our bodies.
Your writing is so humane and kind. I just wanted to say how much I appreciated it in a time when a lot of us feel very torn in our feelings, and struggle to explain our concerns. All I want is for kids to grow up as I did, with a belief that - modulo biology - anyone can be any way they want.
I just can’t comprehend how so many people are so willingly going back to such regressive, narrow gender roles. It’s as if the “nice” adults have joined with the playground bullies in telling the gender nonconforming boy, “You’re not a real boy.”
This album was also a staple of my childhood, and I can still sing its songs. My pre-Boomer parents were not 100% sure about it (it was a gift from a younger, hipper relative), but they let us listen, just the same. And being raised in the 70's meant there were lots of earth tone and primary color clothes for both girls and boys. I had few, if any, pinks or pastels in my wardrobe, and legos were just legos. I was a tomboy with an older brother and preferred playing with boys to girls for the early part of my childhood. This was considered completely normal and healthy. How sad that my own daughters have to navigate such a changed set of expectations and messages and feel constrained or judged for not always measuring up to the feminine "ideal"!
Another well written, compassionate commentary. It’s a pep talk for me! The struggle is real. Still fighting the good fight.
Love this. Love that album and Atalanta. Tried to talk with my daughter about this when she first came upon this gender ideology cult, but she was already captured. Keep writing and fighting, Lisa. Thank you.
Brilliant as always
Thank you! Great essay!
I grew up with Free to be you and me, also. It just makes sense. I don't know how we raise kids to stay sane when people are running around with these stupid regressive stereotypes. I remember the LEGO for girls being rolled out. You could tell it was for girls because...it was pink. That was ridiculous. Assuming girls follow the stereotype and then "reaching them" by reinforcing it? All huge steps backwards. I keep seeing these attempts to be inclusive where instead of freeing people from gender expectations, they just build on them and lock them in more???
Just insane.
I agree 100 percent with your overall point, but I do want to comment on the part where you point out that women are still underrepresented in politics and that girls drop out of sports. I believe that statistics show that in the most egalitarian countries, where men and women have the narrowest pay gaps and the most equal standing legally, women end up choosing to stay at home and work part time more often than in comparably rich but not as egalitarian countries. Women do have different priorities and likes (on average, of course). I don't have the data for this, but I suspect that a lot of girls choose not to continue with sports because their priorities change, and that's ok. I also suspect more men than women enjoy the competitive and often combative and aggressive side of politics. That's where the difficulty arises oftentimes - in the murkiness of predispositions versus stereotypes.
As usual you nailed it! May this get picked up and see the publication you deserve - as you are speaking the truth!!!
Thanks for the great conversation. Lots of wonderful insights here. I was particularly interested in the discussion on word choice, eg, gender-affirming as euphemistic, mutilation as too harsh the other way, and ending on bilateral mastectomy (factual and neutral). As someone who had the Hobson’s choice of dying of breast cancer v. Bilateral mastectomy (hopefully for many today there are less drastic choices), I do have, ironically, a problem with the neutral term. While I appreciate where Keig is coming from, there’s a complexity to this that I want to point out. To have to have a bilateral mastectomy in order to avoid dying was a terrible choice. It was not staying over in the hospital, or even undergoing the surgery (which is not that tough for most of us), but rather having to mutilate my body to stay alive. As a friend who had to do the same because of cancer said at the time--if we were men, they would come up with something less horrible than this kind of mutilation. So, for me, the neutral term doesn’t get at what the experience is like. Over time, I have of course learned to live with it, but I really don’t want anyone to think this kind of choice was just fine, and mutilation helps convey that. The other aspect of this that I’d note is breast reconstruction is no panacea. First, the way these surgeries were conducted at the time, the basic breast removal offered no pretense of cosmetic look, even flat-chested. Instead, you were set up to either go with crude scars or undergo often several cosmetic operations to end up with fake breasts without sensation and also potentially problems with silicon implants. I had a friend with advanced cancer who went through this, because she couldn’t bear looking unwomanly. Several surgeries later, she had new fake breasts, and shortly afterward, she died. I feel sad and angry for Keig that societal norms made it untenable for Keig to present as a woman safely, but what I would wish for all of us is that bodily mutilation was not seen as the only way to address this. Let’s change the world, not our bodies.