When it comes to parenting, there are plenty of things I get outraged about. Pink nail polish is generally not one of them.
You may have thought we were beyond the days of only dressing girls in pink or banning boys from playing with dolls, but a “controversial” picture in a recent J.Crew catalog proves otherwise. The picture features company president and creative director Jenna Lyons playing with her mop-haired son, painting his toenails … pink. I know, quelle horreur! The caption reads, “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.” Agreed.
The innocuous — and very sweet, if you ask me — picture has resulted in a media firestorm. Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow labeled it “physiological sterilization” and suggested that Lyons could somehow make her son gay or transgender. A writer for the conservative Media Research Center called the picture “blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children.” The organization’s vice president Dan Gainor even went on NBC’s “Today” show, saying: “I mean, it’s gender-bending. To do it with a 5-year-old boy just significantly crosses the line.”
Crosses the line? It’s hard to keep from rolling my eyes. Suggesting that nail polish has anything to do with sexual preference or gender identity indicates a serious lack of knowledge about homosexuality, transgender issues or child development. But even if there were some sort of magical nail polish that could turn a kid gay or transgender, who really cares? The argument at the heart of this homo- and trans-phobic frenzy is the notion that there is something undesirable and wrong about being a gay or transgender child.
I suppose this kind of thinly veiled hatred shouldn’t surprise me. Despite the policy and social progress we’ve made, too many Americans still believe that gay and transgender people are aberrant and in need of “fixing.” After all, just this week the American Library Association announced that the book on which it is most frequently challenged is “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s story about two male penguins who care for a baby penguin. Also this week, Ryan Sorba, chairman of the Young Conservatives of California, argued at a Virginia conference that the word “gay” should be banned. (It should be called “unnatural vice” or “sodomy” according to Soba.) Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield is even introducing legislation informally known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would ban schools from discussing any sexual orientation but heterosexuality.
In addition to being incredibly offensive to gay, transgender and nail polish-loving people everywhere, this bizarre overreaction to a perfectly normal interaction between a mother and her son also shows how far we have to go in terms of letting go of traditional gender norms. When I shop for toys and clothes for my daughter, the pink overwhelms me — it’s everywhere! (As are the baking sets and fake dishwashers. Sigh.) And I will never forget, as a teenager, walking in on a 3-year-old I was babysitting and seeing him throw the doll he was playing with across the room — he didn’t want me to see him with a “girl’s” toy. Even at such a young age, he had already picked up on the message that this was a shameful act. It still disturbs me today.
What’s particularly interesting is that it’s specifically expressions of girlhood — be they dolls or nail polish — that seem to bother people. Americans have little problem with tomboys (so long as they grow out of it, of course) or young girls who wear boys’ clothing or play with trucks. It’s when boys act like girls that we get worried. Why? Because, sadly, we live in a world that sees women and girls as less-than.
And to some, tomboys may be understandable, because if boys are superior, why wouldn’t a girl want to be more like a boy? But a boy who enjoys traditionally feminine trappings is seen as lowering himself. It’s why a prison in South Carolina punishes inmates by dressing them in pink, and why when Thai police are reprimanded, they’re forced to wear Hello Kitty armbands. It’s why the worst thing you can call a boy are words like “pussy,” “bitch” and “fag” — there’s nothing more humiliating than being considered female or girlish. How sad is that?
At the end of the day, this silly controversy is much ado about nothing. Mara Keisling, executive director of National Center for Transgender Equality, told ABC News: “This is not how the world works and not how children work. Complaints about the ad are totally blown out of proportion.”
And no matter how these “experts” shroud their hate in rhetoric about concern for children, their true colors are showing. Unlike neon pink, it ain’t pretty.
You may have thought we were beyond the days of only dressing girls in pink or banning boys from playing with dolls, but a “controversial” picture in a recent J.Crew catalog proves otherwise. The picture features company president and creative director Jenna Lyons playing with her mop-haired son, painting his toenails … pink. I know, quelle horreur! The caption reads, “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.” Agreed.
The innocuous — and very sweet, if you ask me — picture has resulted in a media firestorm. Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow labeled it “physiological sterilization” and suggested that Lyons could somehow make her son gay or transgender. A writer for the conservative Media Research Center called the picture “blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children.” The organization’s vice president Dan Gainor even went on NBC’s “Today” show, saying: “I mean, it’s gender-bending. To do it with a 5-year-old boy just significantly crosses the line.”
Crosses the line? It’s hard to keep from rolling my eyes. Suggesting that nail polish has anything to do with sexual preference or gender identity indicates a serious lack of knowledge about homosexuality, transgender issues or child development. But even if there were some sort of magical nail polish that could turn a kid gay or transgender, who really cares? The argument at the heart of this homo- and trans-phobic frenzy is the notion that there is something undesirable and wrong about being a gay or transgender child.
I suppose this kind of thinly veiled hatred shouldn’t surprise me. Despite the policy and social progress we’ve made, too many Americans still believe that gay and transgender people are aberrant and in need of “fixing.” After all, just this week the American Library Association announced that the book on which it is most frequently challenged is “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s story about two male penguins who care for a baby penguin. Also this week, Ryan Sorba, chairman of the Young Conservatives of California, argued at a Virginia conference that the word “gay” should be banned. (It should be called “unnatural vice” or “sodomy” according to Soba.) Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield is even introducing legislation informally known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would ban schools from discussing any sexual orientation but heterosexuality.
In addition to being incredibly offensive to gay, transgender and nail polish-loving people everywhere, this bizarre overreaction to a perfectly normal interaction between a mother and her son also shows how far we have to go in terms of letting go of traditional gender norms. When I shop for toys and clothes for my daughter, the pink overwhelms me — it’s everywhere! (As are the baking sets and fake dishwashers. Sigh.) And I will never forget, as a teenager, walking in on a 3-year-old I was babysitting and seeing him throw the doll he was playing with across the room — he didn’t want me to see him with a “girl’s” toy. Even at such a young age, he had already picked up on the message that this was a shameful act. It still disturbs me today.
What’s particularly interesting is that it’s specifically expressions of girlhood — be they dolls or nail polish — that seem to bother people. Americans have little problem with tomboys (so long as they grow out of it, of course) or young girls who wear boys’ clothing or play with trucks. It’s when boys act like girls that we get worried. Why? Because, sadly, we live in a world that sees women and girls as less-than.
And to some, tomboys may be understandable, because if boys are superior, why wouldn’t a girl want to be more like a boy? But a boy who enjoys traditionally feminine trappings is seen as lowering himself. It’s why a prison in South Carolina punishes inmates by dressing them in pink, and why when Thai police are reprimanded, they’re forced to wear Hello Kitty armbands. It’s why the worst thing you can call a boy are words like “pussy,” “bitch” and “fag” — there’s nothing more humiliating than being considered female or girlish. How sad is that?
At the end of the day, this silly controversy is much ado about nothing. Mara Keisling, executive director of National Center for Transgender Equality, told ABC News: “This is not how the world works and not how children work. Complaints about the ad are totally blown out of proportion.”
And no matter how these “experts” shroud their hate in rhetoric about concern for children, their true colors are showing. Unlike neon pink, it ain’t pretty.
