All right, a few things here that don’t necessarily go together, but they all came across my screen on the same day, so let’s look them over:
1.) Why I Didn’t Want a Girl
CNN.com, reprinting a story from parenting.com, decides to give us a story that almost has a point in it, but ends up with quite a few mixed up runs of misogynistic ideas. The woman writing the article (and of course, it goes without saying that women are fully capable of being misogynistic and as we’ll see here, take their rejection of other females - including their own daughters - as something that should make them appealing to men) gives us the narrative on how, after two boys, she resents her unborn child for getting two X chromosomes.
She starts out by saying that she’s pregnant, with two boys at home already, and how people are always asking her if she’s hoping for a girl:
I know these people are just making conversation. But this constant assumption leaves me a little offended. What’s wrong with boys? Why wouldn’t I want another one? It bothers me that people assume I feel incomplete without a daughter, let alone that it’s my motivation for being pregnant with a third child in the first place.
And you know what? So far, this thing isn’t stupid at all. It’s certainly a worthwhile statement to assert that a mom can be happy with only sons, and that in order to be fulfilled, she doesn’t need to create another female in the house. So how does she manage to start driving off the cliff?
because when I say I am the mother of two boys less than two years apart, I get a respectful nod or even a big thumbs-up for having that much testosterone in my daily life.
She wants another son because she gets so much approval for having sons, and that raising a daughter wouldn’t generate nearly as much, apparently. It’s not a perk of having sons, it’s the reason to desire sons. That worked for Jane Seymour I suppose.
The night we found out I was pregnant again, my husband, David, said, "Odds are it’s another boy. How do you feel about that?"
I thought for a moment, and answered honestly, "I feel good about that." He patted my hand. "That’s how I feel, too," he replied, and we both drifted off to sleep. It was more than good; we were relieved.
Okay, I can’t help myself but to complain about the genetics fail here. Or the probability fail, I suppose. There’s no reason to think that a streak will continue, or stop, if it’s all up to random chance, as it is with a baby’s sex. And for her future daughter, I’m glad she can at least take solace on the fact that her parents agree she’s unwanted.
Anyway, continuing on, the receptionist at her OB/GYN accidentally blurts out that she’s having a girl, and she has this response:
"I didn’t know," I said, my head spinning. "I’m sorry…I’ll have to call back."
I sat there in a daze. This child I was just starting to feel stir inside me was a girl? I waited for the excitement to wash over me. It didn’t come. Not only was I not thrilled — I was disappointed.
Well, I’m glad she’s not faking emotions she’s not having, anyway, but to be shaken and dazed because you’re having a girl? Openly disappointed in a very public forum? Luckily, she’s good enough to share why she doesn’t want a girl:
They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate.
What if I couldn’t stomach daily viewings of "The Little Mermaid?"
My sons sneer at all things princess, and so do I.
I fear I won’t know how to protect my child from a world that may often tell her that she’s not good enough as she is.
The last one is a legitimate fear, because there are of course some very serious issues that girls have to face growing up that are certainly more stressful for their parents. Of course, the author here has started this article - and this section of it - by telling her unborn daughter that she won’t be good enough as she is, that what she wants is a boy because girl stuff is stupid. She say:
That, in order to get ahead, she’s going to have to deny some part of herself.
While begging the unborn daughter to act exactly like a boy.
I really don’t mean to argue that expecting parents shouldn’t have apprehensions, etc. But I think this particular article is disingenuous and seeks to primarily put down girls and femininity while showing off how much this stance makes you popular with boys. I’m not impressed.
And on to another item
2.) Girls ‘especially cautioned’ by 17 Again
This a New York Times line:
“17 Again” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Girls are particularly cautioned.
What do you have to do with your smiley, Zac Efron movie to get a misogyny warning from the Gray Lady? Well, apparently, you have to sneak a heavy-handed abstinence-only message and convince even the New York Times that the message is that girls will ruin your life - which is almost exactly the language the Times uses.
Expanding on this, Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon adds:
Efron’s character, who is an adult man who has gone back to being 17, spends much of the movie running around telling young women that they shouldn’t have sex, that they should have babies as soon as they have sex, and that if you express sexual desire you are disgusting and have no respect for yourself.
Of couse, since the premise depends on Efron/Matthew Perry’s character getting his girlfriend pregnant in high school, you’d think the end message would be that this was a mistake. It’s not, of course, this worked out great for them as the movie revealed that that’s how he found his soul mate. Which is the same message we got about Bristol and Levi, and Amanda’s gloss works much better than mine. She also points us to Jennifer Aniston & Jason Bateman’s new movie:
3.) The Baster
From IMDB:
An unmarried 40-year-old woman turns to a turkey baster in order to become pregnant. Seven years later, she reunites with her best friend, who has been living with a secret: he replaced her preferred sperm sample with his own.
It’s a romantic comedy, so I’d imagine that this plot is not being portrayed as some dark violation that might even be approaching a kind of rape. Come on, Michael Bluth, you can do better than this!
