Thinking about Sally Ride

[lillibet]

A friend used to tell the story of the time when her son suddenly decided that he wanted to be a girl. He was about six years old and she was open to him being whoever he became, but it seemed an unlikely choice for this particular kid. So she talked to him about it, trying to figure out where this was coming from. Slowly she pieced together that they had recently visited an exhibit about women in science that featured Sally Ride and Christa McAuliffe and that in his alphabet book, R was for "rocket" and showed a girl with her ponytail flying out the porthole of a rocket. He didn't want to be a girl, he wanted to be an astronaut and he didn't know that boys could do that, too.

Comments

[gale_storm]

Funny and cool story!!!

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

That made me smile. Thank you.

[dpolicar]

"They let men be rabbis?"

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

That is so wonderful. ;-)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

That also makes me think. If children are so impressionable that all they need to be convinced of gender importance is to see repeated mentions of it, then we should be exposing them to more gender-balanced examples of every profession possible. Then little girls might be more willing to grow up to be doctors not nurses (unless they really want to be nurses). Conversely, more little boys might choose being a nurse over being a doctor (unless they really want to be doctors). Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor and not everyone is cut out to be a nurse. Why should gender be a factor at all?

We know it shouldn't be. But with children at a certain stage of development, it totally is.

There's a lot of potential here.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

You could write children books with gender neutral bunnies in various roles, but then kids would want to become a bunny so they could get a job as a doctor or a nurse. :)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

lillibet, your comment here appears to have been deleted or is lost; I can't see it in my view of your post. But I did read the link you included. Interesting. What it seemed to be saying to me was that the only way being a doctor pays off is to overwork oneself (working >40 weeks) and since women tend to do that less frequently than men, they are at a financial disadvantage if they go to medical school, but not so if they go to PA school.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Yes, let's see if it will let me reply now :) Sorry about any confusion.

And yeah, that's what it said to me. Between that and the ridiculous chokehold the AMA is keeping on the number of doctors available, it's a catch-22 for everyone.

[muffyjo]

The anonymous comment was mine. I didn't realize I wasn't logged in. :)