My kid learner invited me to her masquerade party at school. To my greatest surprise, trends changed a great deal (okay, this is not too surprising so far) and did so in a pretty controversial way (and this was the surprise). It is no longer that the students (and their families) individually decide on what kind of costume to wear and how to put it together, like in the "old days" of my childhood, which was a lot of fun. Instead, it is the community of the class that picks for the whole group (first shock) and they don't make but order the costumes (second shock). The biggest surprise, however, comes only now: girls got to be angels and boys were devils. Can it go worse? Girls nuns, boys rapists perhaps?
Some girls like the role of an angel, being in pure white and soft make-up. Although I find make-up a bit early at the age of 9, but let it be. But to force it to everyone, that is a serious problem. Also, while some boys enjoy the liberating role of being a prankster (but that's not devil, I may point out), I doubt it is a healthy message to the group of boys that they are as bad as the devil.
You can say, I went too far, because this is not that serious. It is just meant to play with dichotomies like yin and yang, man and woman, bad and good. Exactly that is the problem. Because it is not as simple and clear-cut as mainstream culture (and education) would like to suggest. A girl thinking she must be perfect, otherwise she is not a girl, and a boy believing he cannot be nice, otherwise he is effeminate, is an end-product of such innocent school projects that no one benefits from.
Unfortunately, this is not a unique phenomenon. At my workplace, which is a rather progressive German company, we have something similar going on. The company is kind enough to give everyone a small present for one's nameday, but it is gender-dependent what you get. Men wine, women chocolate, automatically. Since I don't like marzipan (which is what the piece of chocolate ordered for women contains), I got permission to have wine, as they underlined, as an exception! The worst part is that no one had questioned this practice before me. Why is it obvious that women have to have chocolate and men must prefer wine?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, it is the automatism that is the problem. The majority of women would still choose chocolate -- but I guess mostly out of social conditioning -- and the majority of men would pick wine -- influenced by what culture and society considers and expects as "manly" -- but at least there would be some space to decide and be yourself. Or is it rather an illusion?
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