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Boys and Girls Are Both Put in a Box, But the Box for Boys is Smaller
How we constrain masculinity, harms both men and women
“Mommy, why are there girl colors and boy colors?” My six-year-old looks up at me on the way home from school. “And why are so many more of them girl colors?”
“Buddy,” I tell him. “There are no such thing as girl colors and boy colors. Anyone can like any color they want.”
“Then why does Nicolas tell me that only dark blue and dark green are boy colors? He said that since I was wearing light green, it was a girl color and he called me a bad name.”
A million things circle through my brain as I listen to this. A million things I want to try to explain to him. But of course, he is six so he won’t understand why society function the way it does, and why people insist on gender lines for everything.
Instead I settle on, “Do you like wearing all the colors?”
He nods.
“Then don’t listen to Nicolas.”
“Ok,” he hesitates, “but its not just Nicolas, that is what everyone says.”
