children's dichotomy

the other at work during yard supervision, i interacted with two children sadly caught up in the dichotomy of gender roles.

one girl comes up to me from time to time to talk because she says she doesnt know what to play or shes bored. i noticed a whole bunch of silly bands on her wrist. when i see someone with silly bands (adult or child) i often comment and ask what shapes they have. i am fascinated by these shape holding rubber band bracelets. the girl has a whole bunch of pirate silly bands, even better, i love pirates. i asked her where she got them and she said in a party favor from a friends birthday party. she went on to say that she accidentally got a boy bag. so i asked her what was in this “boy bag”. she told me she had these pirate silly bands and i said thats okay, girls like pirates, i like pirates. she said, yeah i know. so i asked again, so what else was in the boy bag. she said candy, it was mostly candy. i replied again, girls like candy. smiling, she said yeah i know. she continued, they were actually mostly the same. its sad to me that there is such a dichotomy that likes and dislikes, toys, colors, hobbies, etc. are “inherently” for boys or girls and that children feel cheated or wrong when they are mismatched with their gender stereotypes.

toward the end of recess, another girl came up to me. she was showing off her new haircut. i hadnt noticed, but i guess her hair was long down her back, she much have regularly warn her hair in a pony tail or something of the shorts. her hair was now resting just below her shoulders. i told her it looked very nice. she said that she cut off ten inches so i asked if she donated it and she did. i shared with her that i had wanted to do that but when my hair was long i progressively cut it shorter so i never had ten inches to be able to donate. she went on to say that she felt like a boy. i asked why and she said because her hair was so shirt. now, her hair was by no means really short, and she was talking to my who has hair much shorter. i told her that i have seen boys with hair that length but mostly i have seen that hair length on girls and i have also seen boys that have much longer hair. she shared that she once saw a boy who had a pony tail. i tried to explain that its not the length of your hair that makes you a girl or a boy, her hair looked great and all that mattered is if she liked it.