How To Talk To Babies About Gender Theory
BABY: dont want u
want daddy
ME: GENDER IS A SPECTRUM OF BEHAVIORS NOT A FIXED IDENTITY
STOP DENYING MY AGENCY
BABY: want juice
ME: I’M GONNA READ JUDITH BUTLER TO YOU AGAIN
BABY: [nurses]
ME: you realize youre literally consuming me
BABY: [nurses]
ME: wow
its like de Beauvoir never even wrote The Second Sex
[leans over baby's crib]
ME: DON’T YOU DARE DEVELOP ALONG FREUDIAN STAGES
BABY: [sleeps]
ME: ARE YOU IGNORING MY REGULATIVE DISCOURSES
BABY: [sleeps]
ME: wow
have you queered anything today
BABY: [cries]
ME: hey
HEY
we have talked about this
BABY: [cries]
ME: what is the function of the imaginary primordial enclosure formed by the imago of the mother’s body
you know this
i know you know this
ME: i dont care how you express your future sexuality
but dont you dare bring a post-structuralist into this house
BABY: [chortles]
ME: THIS IS SERIOUS
ME: IS GENDER A PERFORMANCE OR A CONSTRUCT
PUT DOWN THAT BUNNY AND ANSWER ME
ME: [holding car keys] okay, Baby
show me the difference between the symbol and the archetype
BABY: [claps]
ME: come on
what’s being displaced here
BABY: want fahh
want fahhh
ME: who wants fahh?
BABY: want fahh
ME: Is it I?
Are you learning the function of the I?
Are you ready for Lacan’s mirror stage?
BABY: want fahhh
ME: I didn’t think so
BABY: [eats a Cheerio]
ME: WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO REALIZE
THAT ‘THE REAL’ IS NOT NECESSARILY COEXISTENT WITH REALITY
BABY: [hands me 'Are You My Mother']
ME: DO YOU WANT ME TO READ THIS TO YOU
OR ARE YOU FINALLY READY TO CRITICALLY INTERROGATE THE TEXT
BABY: book
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
Tags: advice, babies, feminism, gender theory, humor, parenting, raising a family
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Mallory. <3
3 years later ME: Yeah, just go watch Sophia the First on TV. And some Doc McStuffins. That'll balance it out.
"OR ARE YOU FINALLY READY TO CRITICALLY INTERROGATE THE TEXT"
I wish I babysat.
Mallory there is something wrong with this post– when I click on it, I get a header type thing at the top of my screen that makes it seem like i'm logged in as you on some sort of editor account
Shit. I see it. Thanks Riot
Yeah I have this too
Yes, I'm getting that too!
WE FIXED IT HOORAYYY
But the header was calling me Mallory. I felt so powerful!
I know right?
"had my wish come true," I thought. "did the blood magicks work?"
I looked down, but alas, I was still me
What if we had a coup on The Toast and nobody came?
Thank goodness for this. I might have a baby someday and this answers so many of my questions. I will paste it into the front cover of my Penelope Leach book.
Yes. I am impressed and mystified by any parents who manage to keep their infants alive and not abandoned in the woods, but there is still part of me that is convinced if someone ever gave me the care of a child I would raise it to be perfectly enlightened on all difficult topics. This article shall be my guide.
Well I wasn't going to have a baby but maybe I will now just so I can make use of all those things I learned in college.
I ask again, WHEN IS THE PARENTING BOOK COMING OUT
I'm pretty sure my mother used to whisper me to sleep with feminist theory, so this seems legit.
Will this work on puppies as well?
IDK, but it works on cats. Might be because they're already all about gender being a spectrum rather than a binary.
You've been spying at my house haven't you Mallory. HAVEN'T YOU?! LOOK AT ME.
I saw the title before the author, and was hoping this was a collaborative effort with the two of you.
It is one of my favorite things in life to speak to babies as if they were fully-functioning adults. But only after I coo at them nonsensically, so I guess things even out.
wow
have you queered anything today
I haven't queered anything today so I am officially more useless than a baby.
Okay, can someone tell me what queer means as a verb? I'm guessing it means being deviant/acting against the norms of society?
I had an English professor who would use it in a context of, "let's queer this analysis" and tbh I didn't ever really understand what she meant. But then she would talk about, like, ways the books/characters subverted gender binaries, or ways that characters might be secretly gay.
…..I did not love this professor. And I don't think that is what "queering" means (at least the "secretly gay" part). Sorry this has only probably made it more confusing for you!
Slashfic 201 can be a pretty brutal course, yeah
I always saw "queer" as a the subversion of heteronormativity and gender essentialism, and "queering" a text would find either these elements of subversion or ways to subvert it. Maybe queering IRL is actively trying to work against the heteronormative grain? That sounds a bit affected :/
But fun story: I had a friend I discussed a lot of TV shows/movies with, especially in context with fan communities. We used to watch TV and remark on the queerness within, and then high five and yell QUEERED! Potential example:
*Cap & Winter Soldier fighiting*
friend: this is super gay
me: QUEERED
*high five*
ugh it's kind of awful, it's like using "grow" as a verb as in "we need to grow our business" but JARGON-Y people fucking love it
Ooh. Can I digress to talk about verbs?? I'm not trying to be a jerk – I actually thing this is super fun and interesting.
The problem isn't that "grow" is used as a verb, but that it's used as a transitive verb with a direct object that is something other than hair or a garden (I'm growing carrots = fine; I'm growing my children/bank account/love of cats = not fine).
I'll digress with you, because I HATE "grow" as a transitive verb outside, as you say, hair and gardens. Even though consistency would suggest that it should either be entirely intransitive or entirely transitive, I don't care. There are other verbs that mean the same thing and are always transitive. Use those.
I've been fighting my inner grammarian in recent days, because language is descriptive, not prescriptive, and enforcing class boundaries via dialect leads to a world blah blah blah.
CANNOT stop hating people who use grow as a transitive verb when it isn't about dividing cells. Refuse to try.
Yeah I think that queering a text means that you are subverting heteropatriarchy and/or gender norms in your analysis of it; queering your gender presentation can mean, for example, rockin' a skirt and a beard at the same time. That's my read on it!
riiiiiise like a phoeeeeeenix
<img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnTdS7KCUAExxYx.jpg">
It means sodomizing the text, silly.
I am totally integrating this into my teaching strategies!
(I bet my evaluations will go WAY up.)
this article makes the 3 years I spent studying queer theory totally worth it
I regularly practice the critical interrogation of texts with my niece, now 16months old. The book "Dads" or some such collection of images of wholesome 80s yuppie masculinity is a favorite for practicing intersectional deconstruction. She responds to these archetypes of modern patriarchal pseudo-enlightenment by thumping their photographic faces and yelling "Duh! Duh! Duh!"
Wait until this baby turns 2 and starts telling this mom the differences between boys and girls. This mom's gonna lose her shit!!
"Your boyfriend has long hair. Boys aren't supposed to have long hair."
"But it's so pretty!"
"Boys aren't supposed to be pretty."
"And yet, darling, and yet."
When we lived in California, my daughter came home from day care one day and asked where her other mommy was
They had read a book called something like "Molly has Two Mommies" and the kids all thought two mommies was a most excellent idea
They may be on to something.
I told my daughter that when she grew up she could have a husband or a wife. She thought about it for a second and announced, "I want a husband AND a wife."
I said, "Dream big, kiddo!"
I worked at an after school program for a while and there was a kid with FOUR mommies. She bragged about it all the time and the other kids were super jealous.
omg some shitty anti-trans feminist twitter account just RT'ed this and was all excited and i'm like….you're not allowed to like my work, this baby is not making a comment on the immutability of gender, you assbutts
anti-trans feminists are not welcome in the lovely safe blanket created by the toast.
Should they arrive, we will turn our forms to ice, and our minds and hearts to crystal, and they shall not find comfort, nor shall they find food or water, but they will wither in our unblinking gaze.
i blocked their dumb asses
Or that works, too.
This is how I picture us
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/b89ff1af02e42eccfeb4a8b0a989f78e/tumblr_mvz32sL7ZI1rkiy6bo1_500.gif"</img>
hahahaha whaaaaat
At dinner last night w/ extended family (I raised one of my children to adulthood! He gets a certificate to prove I'm good at parenting!) (I think that's how graduation works, right?)… ANYHOW, my 6yo niece is at her last day of Kindergarten.
She was telling us about her spelling test, which included words like, "the" "and" "he" "she" and so forth.
My spouse: "Okay, I want you to point at everyone at this table who's a boy and say "he."
Niece: "He. He. He. He."
My spouse: "What's so funny? I don't get the joke! Why are you laughing?"
The rest of the night was my niece laughing at my husband, sons, and father. It was the BEST.
I have a toddler and now every time he frustrates me I am just going to ask him if he's queered anything today, and then I will feel much better.
This is perfect.
I'm just imagining all these being said in Archer's voice. Just cuz.