ducks

Boys are Doctors; Girls are Nurses.

• Boys are football player; Girls are cheerleaders.
• Boys invent things; Girl use the things boys invent.
• Boys fix things; Girls need things fixed.
• Boys are presidents; Girls are first ladies.

--I'm Glad I'm a Boy, I am Glad I am a Girl

by Whitney Darrow, Jr. ã 1970

when we read this book in class, I cringed. I am always frustrated with moms who wont allow their boys to play with dolls, or their girls to play with cars. I have a really hard time with the restrictions of gender that our society places on us. For example, There was a little boy that came into my work with his mom and sister. he picked up a hot pink rubber duck and came over to me and asked if Pink was a boy color. I replied that colors don't belong to anyone, and pink could be everyones color. He got a big grin on his face and skipped off. Later, his mother and sister and he came up to the register to buy their things and the little girl put a light pink rubber duck on the counter and the boy put his hot pink duck on the counter. His mom looked at him and then picked up the duck. She told him to, "put it back and choose either a blue duck or a yellow one, because pink is for girls. you sister can get a pink duck, but you cant." He got the saddest look I have ever seen on his face and said, with tears welling up in his eyes, "but I don't like blue or yellow. the pink is pretty." She made him put back the duck and get a blue one. He walked over, changed ducks, and put the blue one on the counter in front of me, and said that he couldn't like pink because he was a boy. My heart broke for this little kid. What was wrong with this woman!? This boy was only about 4 years old! I had to ring them up. If I had had a dollar in my pocket, I would have bought a pink duck for that kid. The moral: boys should be allowed to play with dolls if they want to. the end

As for using this in my classroom: I need to be careful when making assumptions about gender. There are a lot of gender stereotypes in the theater that I don't want to enforce or reject entirely. I don t want to put any of my students into a mold of what girls and boys are supposed to do. I also however, must be aware that my student may have parents who do enforce gender stereotypes. In high school there was a student pulled from the musical by his dad because his dad wanted him to do soccer, not dance in a musical. I need to be sensitive when dealing with gender issues in my classroom.

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