Summary Of A Feminist's Guide To Raising Boys

Gender plays a significantly large role in the way we raise children. From a young age, children are taught to behave in ways that align with their gender. However, these expectations of gender can have negative consequences for children’s upbringing, particularly when it comes to boys. In Bibi van der Zee’s article “A feminist’s guide to raising boys,” she discusses the importance of raising boys in a feminist way so they understand gender differences. In this essay, I will analyze Bibi van der Zee’s article and discuss the role gender plays in the upbringing of children. I will also analyze how the author engages her audience and analyze the style of writing in lines 58-73. Additionally, I will reference the video “Boys and Girls on Stereotypes”

She talks about how she and her husband watched a BBC programme and afterwards she realised she had done the things she never thought she would. She had raised her boys with an unconscious bias towards giving them traditional "boys" toys. She had fallen victim to society and the expectations there are towards the different genders. She recognized her mistakes and how she had betrayed her political beliefs and "the bloody sisterhood." However, the humour also used in this section makes it seem like she doesn't care that much that she betrayed her own beliefs of how the different genders should be raised. She more so cares that her sons have been raised to be boys and later on men, who respect the opposing gender. This is also supported in the section “They seem to be turning out alright, considering” which I mentioned earlier. In this section, she mentions that her son Sam has just as many female friends as male. That he also laughs and states: “If you’d really wanted to swap, you could have done, Mum,” he said. “Dad would have been fine with that.” when she says that she worried that her freelancing made them think that mom stays at home and dad goes to work. Here it is made obvious that even though her way of raising her sons was with bias she is still happy with how her kids have turned

Boys who are taught to be aggressive and competitive may struggle to form close relationships with others. On the other hand, girls who are taught to be passive and emotional may struggle to assert themselves and may be more vulnerable to abuse or exploitation. At the end of the video, the kids start talking about the differences in how the two genders are seen by society and how girls' toys are is a pink mop and boys are rough and should be masculine. However, they talk about it in a disagreeing way and talk about how that should not be how it