... my parents definitely discouraged that kind of behavior and tried to teach us that resorting to feminine "tricks" was bad. My mother actively discouraged things she thought were "too female" in a bad way, like cheerleading (she thought it was blatant sexism and didn't want me or my sister to have any part of it). If she thought we were too preoccupied with clothes and appearance, we would get a talking to about how our looks weren't what was important about us.
I wasn't even allowed to have a Barbie doll (mom thought she was a poor role model) or an EZ Bake oven (because a woman's place is NOT in the kitchen, thank you very much).
I think mom went a little overboard with the anti-female stuff (it took me a while to recover from that and learn that "female" doesn't always equal "bad"
but I also know she was doing the best she knew how to do when she raised me. So I don't have any hard feelings or anything like that.
On the other hand, my sister was a HANDFUL and a half, and I think they basically just gave up trying to "control" her. There was also apparently some active fear my dad had that if he didn't give her whatever she wanted she might kill herself.
It was complicated.
(By the way, my grandma gave me an EZ bake oven for Christmas eventually -- much to my mom's horror but she let me keep it -- and I had so much fun with that thing. Anyone remember the light bulb inside that cooked stuff? I ended up using it to cook tater tots because we couldn't afford the refill cake mixes and stuff... it was still fun.)
Edit history
= new reply since forum marked as read
