I was doing some summer reading comprehension with the boys the other day and we read a story where there was a prince and a princess and a witch and the witch had cast a spell on the princess’ hair and it was ultimately the prince who saved her by helping to provide what was needed to break the spell and return her hair to it’s beauty. It’s a story we’ve all read over and over with slight change in circumstances and smaller details but where the characters largely remain the same as do the roles. I asked the boys what messages they thought it sent and asked them how different those messages would be if it were the princess saving the prince or if there were two princes and no princess and vice versa. And why hair, specifically women’s hair, was even subjected to the curse at all (aka what do we value as a society and why?).
I’ve mentioned the word “socialization” to them a lot in our conversations about race; oftentimes telling them that so much of racism has to do with the way we’ve been socialized but also explaining that this wasn’t a concept I expected them to understand now but rather one we’d keep bringing up until the language was familiar and then, the concept.
But this story of the prince and the princess and the witch and the spell upon the princess’ hair was a perfect example in how socialization works; how when we participate in a society, we are fed subtle messages constantly and being the smart beings that we are, we are drawing repeated conclusions. Both the messages and the conclusions tend to be the same, over and over again.
The messages from the story: women should care about beauty, men should be saviors, women should wait on and rely upon men to save them, heterosexual love is the standard.
Questions I discussed with them: have you ever seen a children’s movie or show where there were two moms or two dads? And if so, was their sexual orientation the center of the plot? (AKA, have you ever seen a family show where the family is gay but them being gay isn’t the central theme of the show —> AKA, have you ever seen a show where being gay is presented as the norm and no added explanation is needed or given?) Have you ever seen a movie or show where it was the man’s hair or face or clothing that was cursed and / or required “fixing”? Have you ever seen a movie or read a story where a man appeared helpless until a woman came to save him? —-> And, most importantly, how would these changes to the stories we read and the shows we watch affect the messages and conclusions we ingest from them?
What we think of as subtle really isn’t so subtle, is it? It’s rather blatant.
I’m damn near 40 and I’m only now scratching the surface on all the ways I’ve been socialized to believe certain things not only about gender, but also about race; the ways we receive messages from often narrow and repetitive media representations, jokes, omissions… And how both race and gender are *social constructs*. I have a lot of ideas in my head, lots of thoughts, lots of observations, but I can’t seem to draw any one conclusion because I can’t stop asking more questions. I’m encouraging my boys to do the same. Notes to self: Keep asking critical questions and don’t allow yourself to get buried in the enormity of it all. When you feel like tuning out is when you need to be tuning in.
