How to answer sons who are asking me why so many girls have 'girls are better' merch

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Your sons need a sister.

My boys have a sister. I would never allow her to wear a shirt that suggests girls are better than boys. She loves her favorite daughter shirt though…

NP. There aren’t mass market shirts that say “girls are better than boys”. As every sane PP has already pointed out, OP’s son is misinterpreting something like “girl power” or “girls rule”. Saying that something is good is not equivalent to calling something else bad.

No - the boys are reacting to the fact that they know they would never be allowed to wear a “boys rule” shirt

And why isn’t there a WHITE History Month, amirite?

So you have a choice: maintain your smug superiority and sense of virtue; or actually “do the work” (as they say) of understanding how kids think and process. If your goal is to show how percectly orthodox you are in your social justice speech - congrats. If your goal is to raise kids with good values - you’re a failure.

I’m raising a son who doesn’t fall to pieces when his sister competes in Girls on the Run, so we’re all set, thanks 👍

He also knows better than to talk to you about the unfairnesses that he experiences in his life. Maybe he can talk to his dad about them, or another safe adult. Or maybe he just has reddit and worse sites for those discussions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tell my boys that they can do anything girls can do. I tell them that they are biologically stronger than girls. I tell them that men do all the most dangerous jobs and that the jobs that keep society functioning are mostly male dominated.

What about the fact that most caregiving jobs (eldercare, childcare, and even healthcare like nursing) are female-dominated? Imagine society if all women went on strike and decided to not take care of any other human? This is one of the most overlooked and undervalued job functions and attitudes like yours are not helping women.

Telling her boy children that they have worth and are valuable is good for society. Men and women, in "traditional" and other roles, have worth and are valuable to society.

This either/or thinking is harmful to girls and boys and society.

Of course both boy and girl children should be taught they have worth. But the PP literally said that it’s mostly men keeping society functioning.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

I doubt you could create such a blatant copycat that you call it Boys on the Run, but if you want to create an after school program called Running Rangers, where kids wear camouflage t-shirts and focus on self discipline, personal growth, physical fitness, mental toughness, and spend time talking about the issues they face, their emotional needs, self esteem, and appropriate ways to express emotion, you can market it as an alternative to Girls on the Run. As long as you allow girls, just as they allow boys, I think you’d be fine.

What if I - gasp - just want my kid to have access to a running after school activity, unecumbered by any ideology?

Then tell your husband to go start such a group at the school. He’s a member of the PTA, so he can take it on.

[Anonymous]

Great opportunity to talk to him about the sexist ideals, values and laws that this country was founded on and how just now women are finally trying to gain true equality. You can also talk about why he does not need such a shirt because it is already assumed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great opportunity to talk to him about the sexist ideals, values and laws that this country was founded on and how just now women are finally trying to gain true equality. You can also talk about why he does not need such a shirt because it is already assumed

It's always better to be the underdog in our culture. Women function better fighting for equality than admitting that it was achieved decades ago and now we need to learn to live with it, preferably gracefully.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your sons need a sister.

My boys have a sister. I would never allow her to wear a shirt that suggests girls are better than boys. She loves her favorite daughter shirt though…

NP. There aren’t mass market shirts that say “girls are better than boys”. As every sane PP has already pointed out, OP’s son is misinterpreting something like “girl power” or “girls rule”. Saying that something is good is not equivalent to calling something else bad.

No - the boys are reacting to the fact that they know they would never be allowed to wear a “boys rule” shirt

And why isn’t there a WHITE History Month, amirite?

So you have a choice: maintain your smug superiority and sense of virtue; or actually “do the work” (as they say) of understanding how kids think and process. If your goal is to show how percectly orthodox you are in your social justice speech - congrats. If your goal is to raise kids with good values - you’re a failure.

I’m raising a son who doesn’t fall to pieces when his sister competes in Girls on the Run, so we’re all set, thanks 👍

He also knows better than to talk to you about the unfairnesses that he experiences in his life. Maybe he can talk to his dad about them, or another safe adult. Or maybe he just has reddit and worse sites for those discussions.

Bizarre projection. My son is not withering at the unfairness of a “girl power” t-shirt, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your sons need a sister.

My boys have a sister. I would never allow her to wear a shirt that suggests girls are better than boys. She loves her favorite daughter shirt though…

NP. There aren’t mass market shirts that say “girls are better than boys”. As every sane PP has already pointed out, OP’s son is misinterpreting something like “girl power” or “girls rule”. Saying that something is good is not equivalent to calling something else bad.

No - the boys are reacting to the fact that they know they would never be allowed to wear a “boys rule” shirt

And why isn’t there a WHITE History Month, amirite?

So you have a choice: maintain your smug superiority and sense of virtue; or actually “do the work” (as they say) of understanding how kids think and process. If your goal is to show how percectly orthodox you are in your social justice speech - congrats. If your goal is to raise kids with good values - you’re a failure.

I’m raising a son who doesn’t fall to pieces when his sister competes in Girls on the Run, so we’re all set, thanks 👍

He also knows better than to talk to you about the unfairnesses that he experiences in his life. Maybe he can talk to his dad about them, or another safe adult. Or maybe he just has reddit and worse sites for those discussions.

Yep … and of course, it’s totally possible that there are some preturnaturally perfect kids who will immediately echo adult viewpoints on race & gender. In many cases, I think these are actually just kids skilled in knowing what adults want to hear and motivated to make grown-ups happy. Not all kids are like that. Most boys I know are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

I doubt you could create such a blatant copycat that you call it Boys on the Run, but if you want to create an after school program called Running Rangers, where kids wear camouflage t-shirts and focus on self discipline, personal growth, physical fitness, mental toughness, and spend time talking about the issues they face, their emotional needs, self esteem, and appropriate ways to express emotion, you can market it as an alternative to Girls on the Run. As long as you allow girls, just as they allow boys, I think you’d be fine.

What if I - gasp - just want my kid to have access to a running after school activity, unecumbered by any ideology?

Then follow the advice I gave earlier in this exchange and create the activity you want, because what you want isn’t currently offered. You can call it Just Run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh no your poor boys are threatened by girls wearing shirts with empowering slogans. 🙄

Sorry, I’m not one to get dramatic, but c’mon. If you as an adult, can’t understand how we are in a male dominated society… you’re part of the problem.

I’m sure you are #boymom

[phone]

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My 2 sons (7 and 10) have been asking me about this a lot. At school and camp a lot of girls have shirts that say various versions of like 'girls are better than boys' (i'm not sure exact wording bc the kids are telling me this second hand, but am vaguely aware through culture ofc). My kids ask 'why would they say this?' Thus far my tactic has been to explain that as yet we have had NO female president in US (I am from the UK so can talk about how we have had female leaders at home) and talk about what kind of message that sends to girls. But my kids are not dumb and their answer is - yes 100% we need a female president but that messaging is still like - girls are BETTER than boys. Any tips on how to talk about this to them? I am failing.

It sounds like your boys are internalizing female empowerment messages. No shirts say things like “girls are better.” They do have positive messages or are sardonic rejections of old stereotypes (a popular shirt in the softball world is something like “you wish you could throw like a girl.”

So maybe tell your sons to stop internalizing things so much — it isn’t about them. Girls have historically been denied opportunities and suffered from lower expectations for roles in society. And so we rightfully encourage them to achieve. Boys don’t really need that same encouragement because they have not been bombarded with messaging throughout history like a boy’s place is in the kitchen, a boy shouldn’t get a formal education, etc etc.

Yes of course they do. Boys live today, not 50 years ago.

I should rephrase that. Boys don’t need that encouragement framed in gender-specific terms. Except maybe in terms of redefining roles they play in domestic situations. Professionally and academic, the drive for boys to achieve is already endemic. There’s no need for equivalent messaging/sloganing the way it exists for girls.

It is not. You've got this wrong. If you are a curious person, you can easily find this information and it shows that boys do not succeed and achieve the way that girls do. It starts young and gets worse.

Bullshit.

Boys are not succeeding academically. Look it up. Then eat your post.

No, sealion. You made the claim. Prove it yourself. Best you’ll find, I predict, is some tropes about “what about the boys?”

Lol @ sealion. There was already a link posted in the thread. Thanks for playing.

That was a single link about education.

Now so now do other metrics for “succeed and achieve.” I’ll wait.

How about the fact that men have higher rates of substance abuse, mental illness, and suicide?

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2019/06/03/men-more-likely-than-women-to-face-substance-use-disorders-and-mental-illness

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html

That is your measure for success and achievement? Men have always been more self-destructive. That has nothing to do with policy or messaging.

How about female representation in key industries: https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/blog/women-are-still-underrepresented-in-leadership-and-the-technology-information-and-media-industry

How about the leadership gap: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/womens-leadership-gap-2/

How about barriers to advancement in the workplace: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace

How about the gender trade gap: https://www.ey.com/en_gl/global-trade/why-the-gender-gap-in-international-trade-needs-to-close-faster

Look I’m not an idiot. I realize that *at the highest levels of privilege* there are gender disparities against women. I have experienced that in my own life. But for men/boys on average, it’s absolutely wrong to claim that they are universally more privileged than women. The suicide statistics alone are sobering (4x as high).

What does the suicide rate have to do with anything? It’s now women’s fault that men have higher rates of behavioral health issues? Is there nothing men won’t try to blame women for?

On this thread, we are all women. Some of us are blaming ourselves for the current damaging state of messaging towards boys and girls.

Since women promulgate culture, we need to do a good job of it.

This is a board for all DC-area parents. How disgusting of you to single gender the responses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

What do you mean, “cancellation?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your sons need a sister.

My boys have a sister. I would never allow her to wear a shirt that suggests girls are better than boys. She loves her favorite daughter shirt though…

NP. There aren’t mass market shirts that say “girls are better than boys”. As every sane PP has already pointed out, OP’s son is misinterpreting something like “girl power” or “girls rule”. Saying that something is good is not equivalent to calling something else bad.

No - the boys are reacting to the fact that they know they would never be allowed to wear a “boys rule” shirt

Do they understand why that would be tone deaf? And why that isn’t some form of injustice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

I doubt you could create such a blatant copycat that you call it Boys on the Run, but if you want to create an after school program called Running Rangers, where kids wear camouflage t-shirts and focus on self discipline, personal growth, physical fitness, mental toughness, and spend time talking about the issues they face, their emotional needs, self esteem, and appropriate ways to express emotion, you can market it as an alternative to Girls on the Run. As long as you allow girls, just as they allow boys, I think you’d be fine.

What if I - gasp - just want my kid to have access to a running after school activity, unecumbered by any ideology?

What “ideology” is present in Girls on the Run?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

[Anonymous]

These people with young boys who already want to take the red pill and wallow in their fragile egos should make use the occasion of the women’s World Cup this month and the things that will be said about the competition be equal pay and the like as a useful case study in how we haven’t yet reached gender parity. Boys should be able to relate to sports-based examples.