Feminist Advice Friday: How can I raise my kids to be feminists?
What you model and how you treat them matter a lot more than what you teach them to believe.
A reader asks…
What is your advice for raising feminists? I have a boy and a girl.
My answer:
This is such a tough question because children are not cookie dough. We cannot model them into exactly the people we hope they will be, and attempts to do so are bound to fail—and often backfire.
So I think instead of trying to turn out children into feminists, we need to shift the goal a bit:
How do we relate to our children in feminist ways?
How do we prevent our children from normalizing sexist, racist, and otherwise harmful values?
How do we model to our children the benefits of feminist values?
Some general principles that I hope will be helpful are as follows:
Treat your boy and girl the same. Research shows that people unconsciously project sexist stereotypes onto their children from birth. For example, in one study, researchers asked mothers to assess how much risk their baby daughters would take as opposed to their baby sons. The mothers underestimated how much risk the girls would take, and overestimate the boys’ willingness to take risks.
In another study, researchers found that the attributions people made to a baby (“Wow, he’s mad” versus “Wow, she’s scared”) changed based on what they thought the baby’s sex was, even when the baby’s behavior was exactly the same.
You must work to consciously counteract this harmful bullshit. Some of the ways you can do this include:
Have the same rules for both kids.
Don’t frame things in terms of “for boys,” “for girls,” and gender neutral. Give your children clothing and toys from both sections of the store. If you wouldn’t put your son in it, don’t put your daughter in it.
Protect your children from harmful media for as long as possible. This includes media that casually spouts gender stereotypes or other harmful crap (like the fatphobia in Peppa Pig). It also unequivocally includes princess stuff. This latter proclamation often gets pushback for “devaluing the feminine,” but princess culture is a harmful, capitalistic marketing creation that teaches girls to obsess over their appearance. It offers zero value. The idea that princess culture is inherent to femininity is the real devaluation of femininity. You can’t shield your kids from harmful media forever, of course, but the longer you can prevent it from getting in there, the more absurd it will seem to them.
It’s also important, early in development, to avoid making gender relevant to daily life. Research shows that, as soon as children have a label, they think about it in black and white terms. So as soon as a child knows the term “girl,” she tries to figure out what girls can do that boys cannot. You don’t need to tell your child what their gender is. Don’t say, “good girl.” Every time you make gender relevant, you make it, well, relevant. Part of the feminist project is not making gender relevant to daily life, not making gender predictive of anything people say or do. Gender should not be a salient part of your child’s life in the first few years of development.
Do not attribute anything your child does to their gender.
Be really mindful of literature that claims to be feminist or empowering. A lot of it inadvertently reinforces gender stereotypes. For example, the claim that “Girls can do anything boys can do!” implies that this notion is surprising. “Not all girls like dolls!” is actually reinforcement of the stereotype.
These preliminary steps are important in the very early years of life, and will help prime your children to be more dismissive of gender stereotypes. But what about as they grow up?
Talk to your child about misogyny frequently. This should be an ongoing discussion. Use age-appropriate scripts. “Knowing a person’s gender doesn’t tell us anything about what they can do.” “Sexism is a system that makes it harder to be a woman or girl.” When you talk about stereotypes, avoid inadvertently reinforcing them. Try flipping them around. For example, “A lot of people think boys can’t do everything girls do. That’s a gender stereotype and it’s not true.”
Find opportunities to participate in feminist activism that feels meaningful to your kids. Kids want to be part of their communities. They want to give back. The more you can encourage them to do so, the more they will value doing so.
Remember that if it’s not intersectional, it’s not feminism. Feminism includes anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-sizeism, ending poverty, and more. Consider your own shortcomings. Educate your children about these issues, and about why they are specifically feminist issues.
But ultimately, the meat of feminist parenting comes down to two choices far less esoteric than those I’ve listed above:
Do you model feminist values in the way you treat your children?
Are you modeling feminism in your own relationship?
Let’s start with the first one. Parenting is so hard. The other day, I sat outside with my daughter as she screamed in terror about something she didn’t want to do. The human in me—the imperfect person who had to get to work, who is emotionally exhausted, who didn’t sleep well last night—wanted to push her into it and let the chips fall where they may.
The feminist in me knew I had to not sacrifice her trust, had to offer her emotional support, had to treat her like a person who matters.
There’s no comprehensive list for how you should treat your kids, or what feminist interactions with your kids mean. But I like to ask myself if what I’m modeling is what I want to see. Am I doing something that’s convenient now, or am I thinking about the long-term implications of my parenting choices? Some things I think it’s especially important to focus on include:
Prioritizing your kids’ needs over other’s opinions. Don’t let bystanders color how you interact with your kids. Don’t force your kids to talk to intrusive strangers because you fear judgment.
Making your kid the owner of their body. Practice consent in everything, unless it is a true medical emergency or otherwise vital for your kid’s health. Work on negotiating to consent from day one.
Expect everyone to help around the house.
Model kindness, compassion, and empathy. When kids share their feelings, listen. Don’t tell them what to feel, or why they shouldn’t feel that way.
Apologize when you are wrong, so that kids—especially girls—know that refusing to apologize is a degenerate, defective, harmful behavior.
Don’t yell at or hit your kids. Otherwise they’ll think this is a normal response to anger. It is not.
And now, for the harder part, and the part that gets a lot of parents into trouble: the relationships you model.
Getting equity in your relationships is about more than your own well-being. It’s also about your kids’ future. It’s about what they normalize. It’s worth fighting for. And it’s worth leaving over. Because your life matters. Your future matters. And what your kids see modeled at home may very well become their future, too.
Break the cycle with your generation.
Email me at zawn.villines@gmail.com with Feminist Advice Friday questions.
I often worry that because I’ve chosen to remain single post divorce and focus all my time and energy on kids and building my skills etc that they won’t have a relationship model to aspire to. Then I remind myself of what a burning dumpster fire of patriarchal misogyny my marriage was and I feel less guilty 😂😂