Of course, time changes kids into teenagers, and with those changes come a backing off for many girls. My sincerest hope, though, is that time and hormones won't change my girl too much. She is a force.
Two Christmases ago, she decided to sign up to be one of the two centurions in our church's Christmas pageant. I thought it was interesting, and I was just glad that she finally wanted a speaking role. She explained later that she took the role because no other girl had done it; she really wasn't all that interested in the armour, sword, or even the lines. I frankly had not noticed that no girl had done the role before. This past Christmas, another girl put her hand up for centurion. I'd like to think that Boo had something to do with that.
She's also the kind of girl who reads books geared to boys because she thinks it's ridiculous that they are marketed at only one gender. One of the books on her shelf is For Boys Only, sitting next to Lumberjanes. She explained she needed me to order the book from the Scholastic catalogue because if it was for boys only; she needed to know the things that they were learning, so that it wouldn't be just for boys anymore. I couldn't argue with that, and I forked over my first Scholastic cheque in years.
This girl has grown up in a time where women can make more money than their male partners without it being an issue, where men share in daily chores, where gay marriage is a given, where gender is more fluid than it has ever been. And yet she is able to perceive the continued, ingrained gendered roles that I, as a feminist, have not noticed or stopped noticing.
So as annoying as the loudness can be, as vexing as the clear NOs are, I'm glad she is who she is. She can keep kicking at the walls of the boxes that many of us no longer see.
No comments:
Post a Comment