Identity and the "modern" child
I use the word "modern" in quotation marks, because typically, using a more historically accurate definition for modernism means to equate it with a very male-centric idea of how people, design, literature, industry, etcetera, approached the rapid changes evident in the world in late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here's a good description from Wikipedia:
“Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped Modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by the horror of World War I.
Modernism, in general, includes the activities and creations of those who felt the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, philosophy, social organization, activities of daily life, and even the sciences, were becoming ill-fitted to their tasks and outdated in the new economic, social, and political environment of an emerging fully industrialized world.”
When I use the world "modern" today, I typically mean a more contemporary attitude to the way we view pretty much everything around us. Perhaps I should be using the term "postmodern" or whatever falls beyond that. But inherently, what I mean is a new or progressive way of understanding identity and gender that challenges past notions of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Recently I came across an article in the new issue of Metropolis, a magazine I only read while sitting at The Coffee Studio in Andersonville, Chicago, which focuses on design in a post-gender society. The premise is that lines are often blurred, if not outright shifted, between what a company's workforce and clientele demands in its work environment, facilities, products, practices, etc. when it comes to a broader acceptance of gender-fluid identities. I would submit that this doesn't just have to do with the larger roles of transgender people in our society; I believe that many of us desire to deconstruct how traditional notions of gender identity shape everything around us, from consumerism and how and what we buy according to gender stereotypes to the emotional ways in which we approach our children, friends, colleagues that transcend the typical categories. The article ends with this statement:
“In our post-gender world, masculine and feminine definitions are being switched and obscured. But this is an essentially human phenomenon, and we need to design for the accumulation of different human beings who are out there by being respectful to individual needs, and creating environments in which people can have their own individuality.”
Ettu and Nooa, circa 2013
This article sparked interest mainly due to my own journey as the mother of a child who, since he was two, has challenged the notions of what it means to be a little boy. I've hesitated to write about Nooa's young journey, which I truly believe is not as atypical as it seems to some, mainly due to respect for his privacy and mostly, frankly, because I haven't felt it was really all that big-a-deal. Today, as a nearly six-year-old, he has traded many of the preferred dresses of the last three-to-four years for tee shirts and lounge pants (on his own accord), but he still comes home and changes immediately into a skirt or capri pants, paired with a well-worn gray tee shirt with pink sequins in the form of a flamingo. The only reason I can think that he doesn't wear it to school is the holes in the front of at the shirt. For some reason, articles like the one I reference above in Metropolis, along with other things I've read in the past, have compelled me to share a little of what I truly believe is a fairly universal experience for a lot of us. Other than a short but difficult time adjusting to a new school (an amazingly progressive school, I might add), perhaps because the divisions between genders were still so much more pronounced than at his eight-child, Waldorf-inspired early preschool where practically every child wore either pajama-type clothing or ambiguously neutral and loose apparel, Nooa has never questioned his identity as a boy. At the checkout line at Whole Foods, Nooa would follow a cashier's innocent, "What a beautiful girl," with a resounding "I'm not a girl, silly, I just like nice dresses!" I had liberal friends celebrate Nooa for his impending road to a transgender identity and more conservative friends and family warn about encouraging this "phase," as they called it. Both sides, although well-meaning, felt at times uncomfortable, not because we were afraid of what the future might hold, but truly because we felt we needed to just accept and celebrate Nooa for who he was... in our eyes and mind a young child exploring his very being within the freedom of a loving and accepting environment. What has occurred to me on more than one occasion is that although it is still a long, long road for a larger acceptance of transgender children and adults in our culture, the understanding of children who identify as one gender but express the interests of another (save the proverbial "tomboy") is largely absent.
There was one post by Andrew Sullivan's in his now sadly ended blog "The Dish" from a couple of years ago entitled "Sometimes pink is just a color," that both Nalin and I really loved. It starts with a video about a father and his son's desire for a pink bike. It goes on to quote a professor's "revised" views on gender dysphoria. She begins by including an exchange between her and Sarah, the mother of a "pink" boy who offers her a "third, more quieter point of view:"
“She added, “...sure, transgender kids exist, but really, most of these gender-nonconforming kids are just kids who don’t fall to the most-masculine or most-feminine ends of the spectrum, and that’s okay. They don’t need treatment, they don’t need sexual reassignment, they just need a supportive home life, schools with anti-bullying protocols, and therapy for any harassment they face for being different.”
I felt kind of stupid reading Sarah’s message, because I realized that I had, in fact, left out this approach. I had targeted my article to parents who report that their male children are insisting they are girls or that their female children are insisting they are boys. But the truth is, as Sarah was suggesting, that a lot of “gender nonconforming” kids don’t have a simple story of being “trapped in the wrong body.” They are expressing more subtle, more complex, and more varied messages of self. What they need isn’t therapy; what they need is to know that it’s OK to be gender non-conforming. It’s perfectly OK be a male who has feminine-typical interests, behaviors, and desires, or a female who has masculine-typical interests, behaviors, and desires.”
In the video at the outset of the post (which you must watch) you'll see that the dad, at once uncomfortable with how others will react to his son's new pink bike, especially the kid with the dark "boy" blue bike parked next to his, is soon surprised and delighted by what transpires next. The other boy breaks down in tears, crying that he, too, wants a pink bike like Oliver. And it is then that his dad realizes the gift he's been given on his son's birthday... "the power and beauty of being yourself." Many, many times over the years, as we have grown with knowledge and openness ourselves, the truth that has remained clear to me from the start is how brave these kids are: transgender kids, gender-nonconforming or gender-creative kids, as I prefer to call them, and gender-conforming kids like Nooa's brother, Ettu, who has never once questioned or seemed at all uncomfortable with Nooa, rather has often defended him. What has not failed to escape me is the beauty that these kids bring to our lives, forcing us to examine our expectations, comforts, and prejudices in new light, or should I say, color. We have been fortunate to live in a city and have our children in a school where these choices often blend right in or at least are accepted with incredible understanding and rarely a sideways glance. While observing Nooa's preschool class last year, I sat next to a four-year old boy with long blond curly locks and painted fingernails who proceeded to tell me that he was "not a girl, even though I have long hair," perhaps a learned preventative statement when meeting someone new. I told him that I totally understood, since Nooa likes to wear dresses and he also "is not a girl." The young boy looked at me, smiling slyly and said, "yeah, that's just weird" (I'm assuming in response to Nooa's dress-wearing), which, of course, made me smile as well. And there was another moment, not too long ago, when I came upon my father helping Nooa put on his pink winter tights in advance of a family function in Missouri — a simple, yet profound act of loving assistance from this grandfather toward his grandson.
So what does all this have to do with modernism and creating fluid design spaces? And why did I use only "identity" in the title as opposed to "gender identity?" Well, for one thing, my own experience has forced me to look at so many things in life with new eyes... from consumerism to my everyday tasks and conversations. What I hold to in the the word "modern," as it is described of, is its basic precept that what has surrounded us daily, be it our faith, values, organizations, activities, etc. can often appear outdated in the face of new economic, social, and political environments. And the quest for designing lives and spaces that accommodate the new (or should I say newly accepted) faces and bodies within our landscape is a bold and invigorating task. I'm not saying we do away with gender definition altogether; of course not. What I do believe is that we are more than the sum of our parts. The colors we choose, the fabrics or styles we wear, the activities we choose, the friends we make can and should break the molds of what we've been taught to see as girl or boy or black or white. When I was young and about to embark on a bi-racial marriage, I was often asked, "what about the children?" (since there was the assumption that their road would be made more difficult because of our choice to live outside the "norm" of southwest Missouri). The response to Nooa's journey over the years has sparked similar reactions in terms of how people will react to him; therefore, shouldn't we just nip this in the bud to save him the pain this his "difference" most certainly will bring. The irony is not lost on me. I say, let's throw off this fear. Identity is more than what we've been taught, it is a part of our very being, and it should be celebrated and loved.
I long for the day when I no longer see the "activity kits for girls" and "handbooks for boys" in the toy aisles; when a child's interest in crafting, art, sewing, camping, engineering, sports, construction, etc. can transcend their gender in such a way that those marketing ploys will no longer work... that our kids themselves will hesitate before saying, "that's just for boys" or vice versa. And lest I am criticized for dreaming of a sort of impossible utopia, let me just say this, I'm not naive; there are certain ways our children's curiosities and interests often gravitate, sometimes quite naturally and without prompting, to their prescribed gender. I am, though, hopeful for when children and adults who express tendencies outside the traditional binaries are not judged or categorized. So let's give it a try... how about we shake off our love of mid-century (god, how I myself love good mid-century design) and go for new kind of modern, with a little more softness, color, and lines that are not so narrowly defined. After all, it's a brave, new world out there.