by: Kristi Reid
If your son wanted to dress like a princess, would you let him? If your daughter wanted to cut her hair into a Mohawk, would you let her?
Gender identities have long been constructed to fit into a controlled box, and if anyone stepped outside the parameters would be ostracized. Under such conditions people may answer either questions with a no, or no to the initial and yes to the latter. Either way it is because some things are more or less accepted than others. Judith Butler calls attention to “sex, as a biological facticity, and gender as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity.” (394) By falling into this belief one sees how gender is constructed and made to fit in this box. Those who choose to allow their son or daughter to step outside the box are challenging conformity.
One parent who challenges conformity and allows his son to dress up as a princess declares “We are following his lead and supporting him for who he wants to be.” (Hoffman 1) Although they may be discriminated against because they allow their son to be his own person without any person telling him that’s wrong, they are changing the way gender roles are constituted. They are creating a world where everyone is accepted and no one gender is accepted. They are reconstructing what it means to have a gendered identity and breaking the historical idea.
How do you challenge conformity?
I would let my son dress as a princess and I would let my daughter sport a Mohawk.
