April 12, 2011
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Outrage Over Pink Toenails
The street I grew up on had a lot of girls on it. A few of those girls had brothers and they always wanted to play with us girls since there were more of us anyway. Being the industrious (okay, sort of mean but in a goofy way) kind of girls we were, we made sure that we got to dictate the rules if the boys wanted to play with us. Usually these rules involved either being the baby or the puppy if we played house and fetching us things.
There was one particular family that we played with a lot. They had a daughter whose age fell in between me and my next sister’s age and a son whose age fell between my sisters. He always wanted to play with us and he was sort of a push over so we knew we could get away with a lot when developing our rules of play. One of our favorite things to do was to dress him up like a girl (wig and all). He’d even let us paint his fingernails. He was just so desperate to play with us and he was a really good sport.
Fast forward about 15 to 20 years: He’s now a huge football player type and married and just about as masculine as they come (not that it wouldn’t be fine by me if he was not). I’m quite doubtful that us girls dressing him up affected him in any way or made him re-think gender roles. And we dressed him up quite a bit.
I think nature is more powerful than nurture many times. Of course, there are some cases where nurture takes over but nature is what it is.
There’s been some debate over a J.Crew ad that features a mom painting her young son’s toenails hot pink. There are some people who believe that the ad is promoting transgender-ism or the revoke of gender roles. I think it’s pretty nuts; pink toenail polish does not have the power to change a child from who they were originally destined to become.
What say you?
Comments (27)
I say, “You’re right.”
At least, that’s the only conclusion I can draw from the dozens of anecdotes from and documentaries about people who struggled their entire lives with gender and biology.
Most stories begin with:
“I knew from a very young age that something wasn’t right.”
“I was always drawn to [opposite gender's clothing/toys/roles].”
“I never felt right in my body.”
If a kid’s biology and gender identity agree with “male”, painting his nails hot pink isn’t going to do a damned thing to change that.
I agree with the post above me. How can painted toenails change a persons feelings so much that they want to be the opposite sex? That ridiculous!
I think it’s a fun way for a mom and child to laugh and have fun. My sister used to dress me up as a girl and introduce me around the neighborhood as her cousin from out of town. I turned out fairly…wait a minute! Maybe there is something to it! LMAO
Seriously though, people need to relax.
Like Automaton_Emotion said, “If a kid’s biology and gender identity agree with “male”, painting his nails hot pink isn’t going to do a damned thing to change that.”
Kids like bright colors, they like getting their hands in bright colors. Why do you think fingerpainting is so popular an activity? It has nothing to do with gender identity.
*sigh* What you said on my blog
@Automaton_Emotion - Yeah, I do think most people are born with some innate sense of who they are. I believe that most people know from a young age as to whether they’re transgendered, gay, straight, etc. Thanks for the rec!
@livexlovexlaughter - It truly is!
@CoderHead - I think it’s harmless fun!
@manic_lizard - I probably would have painted my entire body a bunch of funky colors had I been allowed when I was little. Doesn’t mean I wanted to be one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings ;P
@BoureeMusique - :)
My best friend has five children, two boys and three girls. The oldest boy is the oldest child. The other boy is the youngest. He is two. His closest siblings that he interacts with are his sisters. He has his toes painted more often than the girls do. Do I think that a little neon green on his toes is going to make him question his gender? Nope. He loves it and he is freaking two.
We always put makeup on the guys in our youth group after a youth meeting. It was something fun and silly to do on the ride home. Last I heard, they were all married to women and perfectly in tune with their sexuality.
People can see fire just about anywhere I guess.
The uproar over the ad is ridiculous. Pink toenails and playing with dolls does not make a boy more feminine any more than playing sports makes a girl more masculine.
I think some people are over-reacting to a ridiculous degree. Pink happens to be popular with men AND women these days. The worst risk I foresee is that he’s embarrassed about the ad when he is older. It’s certainly not going to change his gender-identity.
If a little boy feels any sort of negativity from getting their toenails painted then his parents, or someone else, is putting that thought in his head.
Gender roles were made up by people, as they’re not a natural occurrence. The uproar over this ad is ridiculous.
Yeah, that’s just ridiculous. Back in the day (by which I mean the 1800s and earlier), boys wore dresses until about the age of three or so. Seriously, look at those old photographs and paintings and you’ll notice that the young boys were almost unidentifiable as such if they’re under a certain age. And yet those same boys grew up to be kings and soldiers and manly men, no problem.
Also back in the day, pink was the accepted “boy” color and blue was the “girl” color. I forget why or how it changed, but the point is that colors are as unrelated to gender as clothing. Thus ends the history lesson.
I thought the ad was kinda nice actually. I’m pretty sure it’s nature.
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I quite agree with you. And it makes me not want kinds even more than I don’t already….the story about your childhood, not the nature vs nurture thing.
I wouldn’t do it, but thats only because I don’t have a son and can’t paint without covering three walls and part of the ceiling. Thats not art, thats a medical condition.
Some people are just too uptight!
I read the article that you linked to, and the thing that bothered me the most about it is that the critics are saying things such as that it is ‘blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children’. Serioulsy? If it were actually doing that (which it is not), why would it be a problem? A transgendered child should be celebrated as much as any other child in the universe.
There was a story floating around Xanga on the heels of last Halloween about a mother who was defending her elementary age son who decided he wanted to dress up as some female character for his costume. Wearing nail polish won’t make him any less of a man, let alone any less heterosexual. Think of all those punk rockers who wear nail polish!
That is just the way society works these days..
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Who knows the story behind the polish, anyway? I know a little boy who loves bright colors and loves to have his nails painted rainbow colors because it’s fun. Maybe the little boy begged his mom to do this for him and inspired the ad. I think it’s better for the mom to celebrate who her kid is and have fun with him than to yell at him about gender roles and squelch who he really is. It’s nail polish, for crying out loud!?!?
@gwacemom@momaroo - People can really get angry about almost anything! It’s too bad. I just hope that the negativity doesn’t get back to the little boy in the story.
@WakeUpLaughing - With the sister of the brother in my story and my sisters, we used to put on her dad’s jackets and hats and we learned to tie ties in order to emulate the sisters in Little Women who dress up like men and pretend to be a part of the Pickwick Society. I don’t think it made us any less feminine!
@lonelywanderer2 - For sure. Thanks for the rec!
@Saridactyl - Like I mentioned to someone above, I really hope that this negativity doesn’t get back to the kid in the story. He’s just a kid and it would definitely be the adults around him turning it into a bad situation!
@leaflesstree - I’ve definitely heard about the thing with the little boys in dresses (it was practical for potty training reasons back in the day, I believe, when little kids were potty trained much earlier than they are now). I hadn’t heard the thing about the colors but that’s totally not surprising. Things change!
@ElusiveWords - Yeah, I thought it was sweet. At least the woman is having fun with her kid. I don’t think that’s a bad thing!
@wildchildofthebluemoon - Thanks for stopping by!
@bluemarsupial - Hah, I think I have that same issue.
@icepearlz - For sure!
@lilies_of_snow - That’s definitely a good point. We’ve gotta celebrate differences at any stage of life.
@christao408 - I remember that story. People will find just about anything to get upset about. It’s sad!
@Helen G - Unfortunately
@turningreen - I do just think it’s nice that the mom is spending time doing fun stuff with her kid. That’s awesome. There can’t be anything bad about that!
@TheCheshireGrins - Oh, believe me, I do too. That was my attempt at self-deprecating humor.
If the kid is okay with having his toe nails painted pink, I don’t see the problem.
Because we didn’t have a little girl in our family, i used to dress my little nephew , a year or slightly older, in beautiful pink dresses, with frills. God he looked so cute and adorable. Now he is more than fifty years old, a pediatrician, with two grown up boys.
This may sound a little off topic-ish, but in retrospect I would think playing with the girls probably gave your friend a leg up when it came to relating to the fairer sex. I still have trouble connecting/relating to the women. And it has nothing to with preference – I like women waaaay better than men – more that I am thoroughly intimidated and reserved…