What will little girls be made of?
Published by Deanna Hoak July 24th, 2006 in kidsI have my daughter signed up for this really cool camp at the Kennedy Space Center. The kids get to ride in motion-based simulators, work on designing space vehicles, talk to an astronaut, perform a space shuttle mission simulation, and all kinds of other fascinating stuff. Blaine, of course, is thrilled with it.
But when I dropped her off today, I was surprised to see the boy/girl ratio in the camp. Her age group–those going into second grade–had thirty boys…and seven girls. The counselor said it’s always like that.
And honestly, all day long I’ve been wondering why on Earth that would be. I don’t think it’s just what the kids themselves express an interest in, because at this age I think you tend to guide their interests–certainly in a summer camp. And maybe I’m spoiled by my daughter, but I just can’t envision telling any seven- or eight-year-old about this camp and them going, “Meh. That doesn’t sound much fun.”
So what is it? Lots of people just decide for their kids that it’s a boys’ activity? They just don’t encourage their girls to try it, or even tell them about it? Or they’ve just trained them not to be interested in such things from the beginning, so that the girls really don’t want to do it?
I just do not on any level get that, and yet I don’t see other explanations for the ratio at this age. Now given, I’ve been moved to absolute fury by the utter inequality accepted as a given by many of the women in this area, but this just completely boggles my mind. I like to think that my girl is growing up in a place where that’s behind us, and yet if a majority of other parents are still guiding their girls in such a direction, it clearly isn’t.
What is going on here?
23 Responses to “What will little girls be made of?”
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I'm a freelance copyeditor specializing in fantasy and science fiction. SF/F novels I have copyedited have been finalists for (and have sometimes won) the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Golden Spur, John W. Campbell Memorial, Quill, Locus, Philip K. Dick, British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy awards. In 2007 I was short-listed for a World Fantasy Award for my copyediting.
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My company currently has 27 engineers working at Johnson Space Center. Of those, four are women. They range from a fairly junior software engineer to a very skilled senior robotics engineer who is the “go to” expert on the MSS.
I can say with complete sincerity that sex is pretty much ignored here, as is race and nationality (okay, you pretty much have to be a US citizen for security reasons, but we’ve got a lot of naturalized citizens). The last lab that I worked in before this had two women out of seven engineers.
Why don’t we have more women? Because there just aren’t that many qualified candidates applying. I don’t know why — the women we have who are qualified are as good or better than any of the men. The current head of the NASA Astronaut Office is a woman (Janet Kavandi) who has gone up three times. The qualified women are out there, just not in great numbers.
A final aside — two of the four women we currently have work only part time because of family obligations. I’ve never seen any men ever do that. Just a data point.
It’s grooming at an early age. I have two little boys and a little girl and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had other parents tell me they like boys better, boys are so much more fun to play with, girls whine to much, she’s such a girly girl, She throws real well–for a girl, surprised to see a girl who plays with bugs and is willing to catch frogs with her brothers, your boy is real sensitive–are you worried about him in school bla bla bla…
I grew up with the gender neutral colored toys of the 70s-80s and I cannot believe when I step into a toys store these days. It’s like being in a god damn time warp.
Pink aisle with dolls — check. Blue aisle with trucks — check.
I think that because of the heightened fear in this society there has been a return, not just to “conservative” values, but to “safe” roles.
Parents feel so much more judged than ever, parenting in the middle and upper middle class has become a worse competition than lawns and everyone wants to make sure they know what the roles are.
Nobody wants to have the weird child or the kid that bends the gender roles, not even if it’s the typically safe girls.
By the time kids get to your daughter’s age, parents will tell you “oh, she’s just not interested” and its true. By then she probably isn’t. But that comes from how the parents guided the child when they were younger, the choices they were offered as toddlers and the choices not even presented.
I suspect my daughter will be there eventually, but then, my step-dad is an astrophysicist, and he’s spent the past month or so (since we announced plans to adopt) just in seventh heaven over the notion of having a granddaughter to take to the planetarium, to get telescopes for, and all that jazz. Here’s just hoping we adopt a child who turns out to be fascinated by everything, so long (I guess) as we keep her away from the brain-deadening boob tube and pointed at the library.
Come to think of it, that was the joke this weekend visiting family: it’s bad enough to have a child grow up to be the opposite political leaning, but IMO far, far worse to have a child who grows up to hate books. I’d write myself off as a failure of a parent if that happened…
Dang, I wish one of those were in our area… The minx’d probably like it. (Although at 6, she probably wouldn’t have the patience for it, and might be disturbed by rides. Or might not; it’s hard to tell with her sometimes.)
I need to make sure Mulan and Spirited Away are on the DVD player more, clearly, though. Just to make sure the Barbie Motif doesn’t infect. Though she did marathon Princess Mononoke recently…
Mentalwasteland: Yeah, I know among adults that not enough women apply, and I understand the reasons, even; I know what it was like growing up in the eighties, where I was nominated for a leadership award by a teacher and then told by the principal that the Lions Club had said I wasn’t eligible because I was a girl. I understand that things are changing slowly, but this seems too slow.
Geniusofevil: I’m afraid you’re right. I had just thought things were changing with today’s girls more than they appear to be.
Sgreer: I’m sure that with your guidance, your daughter will develop all kinds of wonderful interests. Congratulations on your decision!
Archangelbeth: Blaine was briefly infected by Barbie, despite my utter urging against it. Peer pressure is tough.
I was startled, a bunch of years back, to learn that most parents, if they could choose the gender for their kids, would choose a boy first–in part so their daughters would have someone to protect them. Hello?
And then there’s the biologist friend whose daughter loved bugs–until she started kindergarten. Then, within a week, she claimed to be scared of them, and honestly believed it–talk about deep socialization! It took him months to get her back to being comfortable with bugs again. That just completely creeps me out. Many folks seem to like to think girls and boys are naturally different, that they’re just wired that way, but the socialization is so deep that even if there were some wiring, it would be lost in all the other noise.
And just last week someone at the gym was wishing he had daughters, because he was caring for his ill wife, and unlike his (grown) sons, he assumed his daughters would help him, because girls are better at that stuff. It goes on and on and on.
And it runs so deep. I find it really, really troubling.
When I grew up I my mother tried to make a ‘real’ girl out of me. I fought her with teeth, claws, horns and tentacles. You have no idea how bitter it made me that I had to fight for everything that even faintly smelled like science, or stuff my mother sorted into the ‘boy’s interest’ category, like motorcycles.
Oh, and writing? Was a big no-no in my mother’s eyes. I did it anyway, but always wished she would be more supportive.
And she is doing it again with my brother’s daughter. But I sabotage my mother everywhere I can. *yay* Took my niece to the planetarium last week, and will take her to a motorcycle ralley next week.
I have absolutely no idea why my mother is behaving that way. Just that her idea of bringig up girls has created nothing but bad blood between me and her. Especially when she starts to whine because I am not married yet, as I should, and have provided her with grandchildren.
I don’t worry too much about the Barbies yet — though she’s got some, so far she strips them naked and they run around fighting dragons. Yay for the inflatable cutlasses from McDonald’s?
Janni: The socialization troubles me, too. I try really hard not to let it affect my kids, but you know you can’t have control over society at large, and what the kids around them have been taught to believe. That’s one of the things I dislike most about the area I’m in–those attitudes seem to be so prevalent. I hope it’s not like that everywhere.
Angelhunter: That must have been (must still be) very frustrating. I was pretty much a tomboy growing up, and I think it’s only helped me. (And won’t it be nice when “tomboy” leaves the English vocabulary? I hope we won’t have a need for it one day soon–that we’ll just see different interests rather than interests segregated by sex.)
Archangel Beth: Your daughter rocks. :-)
My wife and I don’t have kids yet…we’ve been married less than 2 months…we just have pet rats. They’re enough for now.
However, when we do have them, boys or girls, they will be taken SCA events, taught how to properly handle swords, bows, and firearms of all kinds. They will also be exposed to camping, hiking, hunting, writing, drawing, and RPGs. And anime…can’t forget the anime…
Yeah, it’s the parents and not the kids.
Kids’ll take an interest in anything you teach them is interesting.
I would have killed to go to Space Camp at age eight, because my parents encouraged a love of astronomy in me at that early age.
Sure, a girl is born a girl and can’t change that, but it is up to the parents to determine what “girly” behaviour is.
When I tell people I can change the oil, the sparkplugs, the distributor on my car, people give me funny looks because I am a girl. But if I was a boy, it’d almost be expected of me to be able to do those things. Car mechanics isn’t seen as a “girly” activity in our cultures.
Well, in my subculture, self-sufficiency is prized. That’s why my father taught me how to change my own oil. Then again, he taught me how to build my own Volkswagen. My girls will be taught to change their own oil, not because they are girls and I want to break gender stereotypes, but because they are my offspring and I want to see them self-sufficient as adults.
I longed to attend Space Camp when I was little. I remember having a vivid dream that I was there, and feeling completely crushed when I woke and realised it wasn’t real. :) I remember one other girl in my class being vaguely interested in space, and that was focused mainly on Star Trek and Red Dwarf, rather than wanting any personal experience with it. Looking back, I did feel a lot of frustration at how ‘girly’ the other girls were, and how limited they seemed to be in their view of their roles in life. I put it down at the time to their unquestioning passivity, a fault in themselves rather than something instilled in them by their family and society. I still do, a little, as I felt strongly then that I had a mind of my own and being cow-like or not was a matter of personal choice, and that everyone should be self-aware enough to not submit meekly to the expectations of others. Now, I think that there isn’t anything inherently wrong in being traditionally girly or even in being uninterested in space, although that last part would make me think that that person could benefit from having their mind being opened a bit.
This is a very interesting topic to me, the more I think about it. Lots of story fodder. :)
A part of it is the way parents raise their children and how they encourage them to seek out knowledge, but a an even bigger part of it is peer pressure. My daughter is 12 but looks like she is 18, and I know the boys will be noticing her in 7th grade. What happens to girls at this age and in teenage life is that they also notice boys and some will realize that most boys do not like a girl to be smater than them. I didn’t say all, just most. I didn’t do this when I was growing up, but I did see some of my friends do it. This is a very unfortunate thing that happens, so I am trying to be proactive and teaching my daughter it is never acceptable to “pretend to be dumb” for someone to like you. Girls are even worse to towards each other, to be “popular” means you aren’t in the math club.
TemplarWolf: Yeah. And the boys need to learn to cook and clean and take care of younger kids.
Heidi: Yes. I wish my parents had taught me more about self-sufficiency. It’s important.
Sophia: I remember feeling frustrated that way, too. I think, unfortunately, that not everyone is strong-willed enough to overcome the conditioning.
Saffster: Absolutely, I remember guys not liking me for being smarter than they were. There will always be that type, and I make it a point to tell my very bright daughter that she should only be interested in people who enjoy her intelligence. Hopefully it will stick.
I just really thought things with this generation were changing so much more than they appear to be. It’s disheartening.
When Orion was born–or really, once we found out he was a boy–I really, really had to restrain myself from hitting people when they said, “Oh good, you’ve finally got a boy. Now you can quit.” We seriously considered stopping at two girls and a significant reason was so we wouldn’t have to deal with people assuming we were “trying” for a boy.
But the whole gender role issue can’t be *entirely* cultural. My girls (5 & 7) have Barbies and Polly Pockets out the wazoo. But they’re also into Sailor Moon, which isn’t passive girly-girl at all. Upon visiting Six Flags (or any other amusement park) they lock in on the biggest, scariest rides and argue with the attendants if they’re not tall enough to go on. They catch bugs and hapless reptiles and hermit and sand crabs at the beach. Calista (my oldest) has already asked about flying and skydiving lessons.
But even with our parental influence, Keela, our younger daughter, simply gravitates to the more stereotypical girly things. Space Center Houston and a DVD like Walking with Dinosaurs holds far more fascination for Calista, whereas Keela is much more interested in My Little Ponies and watching Barbie’s Magic of Pegasus. We’re somewhat baffled by this. Keela’s not been exposed to nearly the level of pop culture gender roles as Calista, but she’s following those lines much moreso than her sister. Her personality is simply more inclined to follow those pathways. But you know, if Orion expresses an interest in Strawberry Shortcake when he gets a little bigger, we’re not about to forbid it because it’ll turn him gay–seriously, a dad got *really* bent out of shape at our house once when his TWO-YEAR-OLD-SON picked a toy hairbrush and played at combing another child’s hair. He actually said he wouldn’t have any son of his growing up to be a gay hairdresser. With those kinds of mindsets out there, how can kids not turn out to be stereotypes?
I guess it depends…I mean, where did you find out about the camp? Is it a place you think a lot of other moms shop/attend/visit?
When I was growing up, I really wanted to attend Space Camp, but it just wasn’t in the (funding) cards. I do still think a lot of women perceive the sciences as a place to avoid/stay away from. I know I have a personal relationship with math that could only be described as “tumultuous”.
I think I was attracted to space camp and space stuff because my parents were hardcore sci-fi readers. Star Trek and any space related show or book was a must have in our house. But I’m thinking of the tween girls I know now, and honestly, I believe science and space are the farthest things from their minds, which is a true tragedy. I don’tknow how much of the boy to girl ratio is girls not being interested vs. girls just not knowing about it. I wasn’t very good at calling out “Hey, I want to do that!”
And if mom or dad don’t suggest it, are you really going to pursue it at that age?
I wouldn’t have.
It’s the socialization. A friend of mine is a single mom, and ever since her daughter went off to a day care populated almost exclusively by kids with two hetero parents, the daughter has been periodically injecting “I miss my Daddy” into conversations, and trying to match her mother up to every single man in sight. The daughter is four years old.
Dingomama’s daughter came back from her first week of school wondering if she’s fat. She’s six years old, and dead normal weight for her height. Dingomama about had a heart attack.
I gotta say, I would rather have sons than daughters, but only because a comment such as the little Dingoette made would utterly break my heart. I know boys have their problems, too, but I don’t think they would kill me.
I am more grateful than ever to my Mom and Dad for making sure they both did equal time with their kids. My sister and I don’t throw well “for girls”; we both can hurl a football the full 100 yards, which most boys/men can’t.
A friend of mine - practical, not afraid to get dirty - despaired over her five-year old’s fascination with pretty clothes and girly things; so it’s not always direct conditioning. I’ve seen the kid myself - slipping into a puddle and skimming her knees, her first thoughts were for ‘my beautiful clothes’. Her mom and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.
I’ve known another girl, about the same age, being more concerned for her clothes than for herself - and came to the conclusion that some girls just *are* like that. I don’t think I’ve ever known a boy concerned about his clothes. Well, not until puberty…
Space camp sounds seriously cool, but I have a feeling that not many mums would consider looking for it.
Jayme: I see those mindsets, too, and I’ve just always managed to convince myself that they were aberrations. It bothers me to think that the way I’m raising my kids might be the aberration, because I’d hoped for better from society today.
WyldFlamingo: Another mom gave me the brochure from the camp; I don’t know where she got it. I assume parents of both boys and girls learn about the camp, but boys are just enrolled disproportionately. I think you’re right about not pursuing it at that age if the parents don’t suggest it; that’s what I think is sad, is that parents aren’t suggesting it nearly as much for girls as for their boys.
E: Socialization does suck. I am doing the best I can with Blaine to give her as high a self-esteem as possible and to tell her there is no such thing as an activity that’s only for boys or only for girls. I know I’ll have to deal with peer pressure anyway, though. I hope we live in a place as she’s older where there are more people of my mindset.
Green Knight: Yeah, kids absolutely do have their own personalities, and they get interested in things that drive you crazy sometimes. :-) Because the space camp is close to here, I assume most parents know about it, though, and just choose not to interest their girls in it for reasons I just can’t fathom.
When I was a kid, I had the privilege of attending Space Camp, Space Academy, and Advanced Space Academy. Yes, the ratio at Space Camp almost fifteen years ago was about the same as what your daughter is experiencing now. But by the time I got to Advanced Academy in high school (about seven or eight years ago), the ratio for all four teams was about fifty-fifty.
I’m just thrilled that you’re allowing your daughter the opportunity. While I gave up my dreams of becoming an astronaut when I realized that science wasn’t for me, I turned to writing science-fiction instead!
I have some observations but few theories.
I’ve been an engineer for 26 years and all the time I’ve worked, there have been women engineers around. But it is still very much a male dominated field. And it’s not because people don’t hire females, but because there are few females who apply.
Both when I was in school, and in my professional life, it is true that on average female engineers are better than men. What that means is that almost every female engineer I have worked with is above average, whereas you have a much wider variation of capabilities among the male population.
Every female who was enrolled in engineering in College was far superior to all but the top males. There were no female slackers in engineering.
In the past 20 years it has been true that more females attend university than do males. But they are not picking engineering and science. Male attendence at university has been dropping off steadily for years.
I have raised 3 daughters and 1 son. None have gone for science or engineering.
Hanna: I’m glad I’m giving Blaine the opportunity too. :-) She loves math and science, and I hope that love will take her far.
Frank: Welcome! When I was in school, at least, girls were in some ways led away from math and science, or led toward more typically “female” professions. I know I’m not doing that with my daughter, though, and so I had thought the habit had fallen by the wayside with a majority of other parents as well. I was surprised to see the discrepancy among kids so young, when the parents have to be the major force in guiding a child’s interests.
I went to Space Camp as a kid, the week long one where you actually stay there. I can’t remember the ratio of girls to boys, but I certianly wasn’t the only girl. I’d guess that at least 1/3 were girls, but maybe more. If I ever find the picture while unpacking I’ll count. A lot of the counslers were girls too.
Of course, I only actually went because my brother really badly wanted to go and it was his treat for getting good grades that year. And my parents wanted a kid free vaction. But I liked space, just not enough that I would have chosen Space Camp above all others at that age. I was much more into horses.
As kids, I loved “girly” things like barbies - but because they were a great creative outlet. I loved legos and my brothers action figures for the same reasons. Still, my brother got all the action figures, star wars toys, etc from extended family while I got girly pictures or jewlery. Despite the fact that I liked his presents much better. My parents tried hard not to fit us into gender roles, but the extend family didn’t help.