My Potato Head Theory

 

Do you want to be a boy or a girl? Mike looks across from the table at his littlest cousin and so nonchalantly asks the question that it makes my ovaries hurt. She giggles and says girl. He picks out a pink piece no larger than a grain of rice and carefully places it into the palm of her hand for her to stick into her yellow car. We’re playing Adventure Life, a far cooler and more complicated version of the original Life board game and I crack open a local beer pick out a car to represent my player in the game. The tradition began last winter when we took Mike’s two other cousins snowboarding in Smithers with my mom where we stayed in an Air BnB that had a handful of board games and life became an instant hit. I picked up Adventure Life for three bucks at the Vanderhoof thrift store and we’ve busted it open the few times we had people come stay in our Tiny Triangle over the five months we lived in Smithers. Mike got a seven on the wheel spinner and landed on the marriage space. I looked up to him asking if he was marrying a man or woman. He looked me in the eyes and responded that he was going to marry an Animal, a dog: In adventure life, you can not only have children, but animals, as well. I asked him his dog-partner’s name was, and I can’t even remember his response, only that he was looking me in the eyes, grinning.

I was raised well. I grew up in an incredibly blue collar household, where free range beef and hunted moose was a staple, and served with plenty of potatoes; it was when I was older that it got messier, but that's not the point of this story. We grew up in a community full of Japanese people, a result of the WWII Japanese Internment Camps being placed in Greenwood, where people continued with their lives well after being allowed to return home after determining that those Japanese-Canadian's were not spies. My best friend was of the Mormon religion, whose parents let me live with them one summer during university and I still think of them often. They were the kindest parents, ever. I knew about divorce and we heard about people being gay, but if someone’s sexual orientation was problem, I never heard about around our kitchen table. My dad has three girls, and I never understood how my gender could be affiliated with my quality of life: We mowed lawns, helped with firewood and were expected to go to post secondary school, to do better than our parents, and to be good people; being girls had nothing to do with it.

I now know of the disadvantages of being a woman because it’s demonstrated to me every single day insome form or another. From  being careful about what I wear when I go for a run as to not draw too much attention to myself because I run alone. Apparently after all this time what I wear still increases the probability of being sexually assaulted or raped. What I wear at work also determines my worth: I got called kiddo at work recently, even though I'm thirty-three and this would never happen if I were a man. These are tiny examples. These things, these everyday hurdles that occur simply because of my sex and identifying as a woman is what makes me wear Feminist T-Shirts, it’s what makes me talk to my Niece about International Woman’s Day and the importance that comes with identifying as a girl, and it’s what makes protest Pro-Life movements with Pro Choice shirts and my very fed-up voice.

The thing is, I’ve never not wanted to be a female. Sexism is frustrating to be sure, but I've never literally wanted to be a man. I’ve never woken up in the morning hating my body because of my sex, because I was born with ovaries. I've never felt I had the wrong genitalia. I hate the stigmas that is associated with being female but I know that I am the correct gender, I am happy being a woman; and this is a huge difference. I couldn't imagine what it is like feeling so confused with my body because I have the wrong parts. I couldn't imagine the emotional toll of relating to a different gender than that one I was told I am, and then having to justify it to people, mostly who I do not know, who not only don't understand, but don't care to understand. It sounds heart wrenching and awful. Someone’s gender identity is not something you can to be offended by because it does not affect you. You don't have to understand it, to support it. Read That Again.

Of all the faults  my parents had (perhaps because they were also growing up, when they were raising us), we never discussed being gay or being Japanese or being Mormon, as though it was a problem, it was simply something that just was, and not only could it Not be changed, but Didn’t have to be. This was never a topic that had to be justified. I only recently understood what it meant to be non-binary, when I met someone on the Camino a few years back. The word and understanding of transgender only recently entered my life, when one of my people brought it into light. And it was explained to me by a three year old: "We call him a boy, because he is happier being a boy". I suppose my parents made the idea of gender identity fairly easy for me to accept, because I was taught that a person's worth comes from how they treat people and not their pronoun.

So, now that my Facebook Feed is being flooded with people being so offended by Hasbro, the current owners of Mr. Potato head (originally invented by George Lerner)  because, along with Mr. and Mrs. Potato head, they’ve dropped the pronouns on some of the potatoes they are creating, and so now I bang my head against the wall due to all the offended responses. Hard. Un-gendering toys isn’t only going to allow those who are non-binary or transgender individual feel more accepted within society, but it also loosens those gender norms for every person even if they are simple a male with a penis or a female with a vagina. A boy playing with a doll won’t make him gay, but will allow him to encourage his nurturing skills. Perhaps a girl playing with dump trucks, which are typically bought for boys, will help her become interested in engineering or a working as a tradesperson, both fairly male dominated career paths. These gender rules aren’t just hurting people who identify beyond the male and female spectrum, they’re effecting everyone. Pink and blue jobs are still a thing, where female’s still make less money in predominately female roles. It’s still out of the norm and mocked for a man to be a nurse or a stay-at-home dad. Why are women expected to shave their legs? Why is it so taboo for men to wear pink (I won't even ask why they can't wear a dress)? All of this is associated with the constrictions of gender norms: what is normal for your gender. And this puts all of us in a box. It's time to think outside of this regulated, expected and suffocating box. 

Combining the boys and girls clothing section to simply have children clothing and adult clothing isn’t a big thing. We know this, because if this wasn’t the case, women would not be allowed to wear pants, they'd still be required to wear dresses. Is letting your kid decide if their Potato Head will be a boy who carries a purse, really going to hurt them?

So, yeah. I shrugged off Mike’s joke of choosing to marry a dog when we played Adventure Life. Bu I truly appreciated his attempts at normalizing gender identity about asking his very clearly female cousin if she was a boy or girl in the board game, because it starts with incorporating it into everyday life and not making a big deal about it, just as my parents did with someone who had a different ethic background, religion or sexual orientation than us. My Mom and Dad didn’t talk about different lifestyles around the dinner table, but it was through their actions and how they treated those people that created mine and my sisters' value system. They’ve taught me that integrity and respect and a person’s value and worth doesn’t stem from something as silly as one’s social economic status or choice of life partner, or a preferred pronoun. No, to me, respect and likeability comes from simply being a good human.

Once very tired feminist.

Sushi Roles not Gender Roles