We Want Our Boys Brilliant, Our Girls Gorgeous, Don't We?

Parenting is tough.  Verily, I say to thee, parenting is tough!  It’s enough to deal with the typical food-throwing, floor-peeing, sassy mouthing, neo-narcissistic toddler with whom I have sparse amount of time to mold into responsible, industrious, loving contributors to humanity.  But on top of that, we have the seemingly evasive task of guiding our mixed-race daughters in navigating a culture built on white privilege that marginalizes their appearance, history, and day-to-day experience.  Plus, we follow Jesus, which also requires us to embody values often contrary to the world around us. Yet, along with those three challenges of beloved parenthood, we get to add a fourth – fighting gender bias – that evil sexist undercurrent that complicates our upstream progress.  As a man, I can choose the luxury of “see no evil, hear no evil”.  As a responsible husband, father, Christian, and decent human being, I better see it.  And I want to.  I need to.  I have to.

That is why a recent study highlighting our tendency to regard boys above girls strikes a chord with me. The work in reference is published by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, an economics Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, who published his research as an op-ed in the New York Times, January 18, 2014.  It ran in the Dallas Morning News under the headline, “Brainy Boys and Fat Girls”.   His study is based on aggregate data from Google search terms.  While not surprising in the least bit, his findings slap me into reality nonetheless.  Here are a few standouts:

• ·       Parents were more likely to ask about sons on every matter related to intelligence, including its absence.  Although girls are more likely to exhibit gifted traits, parents expect the boys to be geniuses.
• ·        What concerns do parents disproportionately have for their daughters?  Primarily, anything related to appearance, despite evidence of boys having a greater tendency to be overweight than girls.
• ·        In general, parents seem more likely to use positive words in questions about sons, such as “tall” instead of “short”, and “happy” instead of the more girl-common descriptor, “depressed”.

As I resume my routine throwing out the Sunday paper, I can’t but hear a muffled question from the recycle bin into which I routinely toss things that I’m done with. 1. Can I simply walk away from the issue that my girls must deal with for the rest of their lives? 2. Would I have even taken the article as seriously had it been authored by a woman? Those are tough questions. My actions, thoughts, and level of tolerance (or intolerance) henceforward will have to provide the answer.