This is hugely trivial, but wondered what you thought.
I slapped some nail varnish on my gnarled old hooves yesterday as the glorious weather meant that I could no longer hide my podiatry shame in boots. DS (3) doodled up and demanded paint on his nails too. He likes paint, and I was irked by the notion that something fun would be forbidden to him because it's 'only for girls'. I slicked some glittery purple varnish on his toes, he was pleased.
When DH came home he raised eyebrows at DS' feet. He asked me whether I would have put nail varnish on a three year old DD.
I had to admit that no, I wouldn't. I get all judgy and cringy when I see little girls wearing make up (including nail varnish) on the grounds that little girls should be jumping and playing not smeared in make up being a 'princess' etc.....
DH said that in Sexist Top Trumps?, surely the principle that little children shouldn't be getting tarted up with adult goo is more important than the principle that there is no such thing as 'boys' and 'girls' toys/colours/activities.
He's probably right. And there was me being all smug about not submitting to gender 'rules' for my little boy and giving him freedom of expression etc.
Yet another Feminism Fail. I'm really sucky at this - I hope I get better at it soon 
Feminism: Sex & gender discussions
Nail varnish on little boys
notanumber · 20/04/2011 14:26
Not a feminist fail at all They are different things. Putting nail varnish on a boy is subverting gender norms, putting it on a girl is perpetuating them.
Feminist top trumps (now that I would buy) would need to be gender specific. Frequently gender is obscured in these kinds of things, for example that channel 4 'stop pimping our kids' programme. Did you see any clothes pimping boys? Any miniature posing punches? Of course not. It should have been 'stop pimping our girls', but of course then they would have to admit it's sexism. Or the nonsensical ruling that the female countryfile presented was discriminated against on the grounds of age rather than gender, even though John Craven strangely wasn't.
Girls shouldn't be 'tarted up with adult goo' because of the links to expectations of women. They don't exist for men, so it is different.
Permission to feel smug again!
(Not that I would like to try and explain that were there a boy and girl stood in front of me both wanting adult goo)
ds still gets his toes painted sometimes. he's 9.
but i am now in a total dither re the girls. hitherto we have adhered to the bathtime rule as well (should add i don't wear polish - i put it on my toes about twice a year if i have to wear sandals, but i'm toenail phobic - yuk, can't bear them. bugger all to do with feminism. tis camouflage - either shoes or colour, usually shoes). mmmm. and i only really let them in the hols...
have been pondering a lot about make up lately. don't wear it myself at all (might for a wedding, but have also been without) but have spent literally bleeding hours trowelling make up onto a 7yo and an 11yo for dance. (tis stage make-up and all tied in to their costume, or to enhance features so they are seen from the audience blah). have also been putting a little on ds for the same reasons (enhance features for stage). but i'm starting to flap a bit about the messages it's sending... and that i'm sending, lol. as i'm the one trowelling it on. (just them, not me...)
is the fact that i don't wear any, at all, enough to counteract the 'normality' of putting a face on for a particular performance? and thinking longer term performance
valium - nope, as above, my ds is 9. he's grown out of the barbie shoes, but still puts his sister's leotard and tights on though.
teitua - i think that's come up a few times. there was a blog post linked to on here where a mum was talking about her ds wanting to go to book day as a female character, i think. it all got a bit complicated as she sort of forced him to go in the end, even though he changed his mind at the last minute, and the kids at school basically bullied him all day. bit sad.
of course, we should all be able to wear what we like, when we like. but there's an age when you can make a conscious decision for yourself whther you can put up with/ attract comment or worse. little ones can get away with it. at 9, if ds wore nail varnish or a skirt to school, i can imagine it would get very tricky. he's old enough to understand peer pressure, but not old enough to deliberately make the choice to stand up for himself against it yet. not for something like that, anyway. well, he's old enough to understand what the unwritten gender 'rules' are. if he decides to subvert them then he'll get my support. i'm not encouraging him to make those choices though, not at 9. it's enough that he understands that it's a choice to follow the 'rules'. and so far he's deciding to follow them. at school anyway.
still wears nail varnish at home where he knows he's not going to get thumped or called gay because of it.
I remember forcing my little brother to have a full-on makeover . Took pictures of him and everything, poor lad.
It is men who have more of problem with gender bending than women.
Some of them even get it into their heads that their son is a girl if he likes pink 
My 3 year old DD loves nail varnish, but so does 4 year old DS, so they get tarted up together. I don't worry too much about either of them, to be honest, I don't make a huge deal out of it, and both children just regard it as dressing up, which is how we play it. I also loved that when DS went to school with silver painted nails, he actually stood up for himself very successfully when a boy in his Reception class made fun of him.
I hope nail polish is not a feminist issue!!
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.