Excuse My Femininity
Every generation has its own trends when it comes to naming children. The most recent trend is naming girls with “boy names”. As a big fan of gender-neutrality and androgyny I’m all for blurring the lines between males and females. However, I find it interesting how this trend only works one way. It is completely acceptable to name a girl with a traditional and widely accepted male name such as James, Ryan, or Dylan. I’ve yet to see a boy named Ruby, Amy, or Jennifer.
The reasoning for this, I think, stems farther than just because it “sounds” weird. I think it has to do with the connotations, and roles that society has tied to gender.
In high school I knew a girl named Hunter. It always striked me as such a strong name, and she lived up to it by being involved in the student government, ASB, and she was always on honor roll. I also knew of a boy who was named Ashley. He was by society standards masculine to say the least. He was a dirt bike rider who loved to go hunting and was always working on his car. It was very important to him that no one call him by his full name but by “Ash”.
I think the reason for this is that men have always been the leaders, and they are the ones who are remembered in history. Female authors used to change their names to a male names in order to be published and be taken seriously. To this day there is yet to be a female president, and males still dominate the majority of politics.
Giving your daughter a male name is giving them a name that has been powerful and important. The same is not true for the opposite situation.
Though women have been strong and powerful, it is thrown out the window by how the media and society paints the ideal woman to be. Women have to be passive, docile, and accommodating. Women are seen as weaker and to this day they are not deemed to be equal to men. Take a moment next time and don’t fast forward through the commercial break. You’ll see that ads are the best example for this kind of sexist logic. In this next Tide commercial notice the tender words and connotations that he used to talk about his “mom” qualities and the harsh and blunt words he used to talk about his “dad” qualities.
I’d also like to quote YouTube user Jack Butler who graced the video comment section with some wisdom.
“Hi. I’m a dad. Not a “dad mom”, just a f***ing dad. And I can do anything this assh*** can do because I’m a f***ing dad. I don’t have to qualify it by calling myself something f***ing idiotic and insulting to all fathers out there like “dadmom”. I’m just a dad. Because dad’s already know how to do this sh** without feminizing themselves. ” -Jack Butler
Angela Davis hit the nail on the head when she said
“Already, more men have begun to assist their partners around the house, some of them even devoting equal time to household chores. But how many of these men have liberated themselves from the assumption that housework is women’s work”? How many of them would not characterize their housecleaning activities as “helping” their women partners?”
Though we have moved forward greatly it’s still apparent that women are seen as lower than men and men are still held to an expectation of masculinity that can be so easily threatened by the chore of folding clothes. We need to start raising all children the same, and we need to stop putting all these gender roles on everything.
The sex you are born with shouldn’t determine your characteristics or personality. Women need to be given the chance to be strong and important. Men need to be given the chance to be weak and vulnerable.
I hope in the future it isn’t shameful to be associated with females, and hopefully one day we reach a point where we truly are gender neutral.
