Pink, Blue, and You!: Questions for Kids About Gender Stereotypes by Elise Gravel and Mykaell Blais
I can only officially request a few books for reconsideration at the local public library, so I’m going to just respond to this book more informally here rather than answering the specific questions required by my library. I’d love to see it removed, but this one has a higher percentage of silliness than creepiness, so I’m going to save my ammunition.
Gender Differences and Non-Binary Preschoolers
In the opening pages, Pink, Blue, and You! attempts to separate masculinity and femininity from boys and girls, respectively. Rather than doing so honestly, author Elise Gravel uses some interesting tricks:
She uses the fact that something isn’t always true to cast doubt on the generality. Something that is generally true will have exceptions, but it doesn’t mean that the generality is wrong. Generally, boys like dinosaurs (pp. 3-4)1 more than girls, and finding girls that like dinosaurs (or boys that do not) does not disprove it.
She places some things that are generally viewed as neutral (reading books, for example), and attempts to put them into one or the other category to prove that the generalities are wrong.
She claims that gender differences are “rules.” For the most part, gender differences aren’t rules.2 They are general observations and consequent expectations about men and women.
She places “wants” above data, duties, and expectations. “How I feel inside” is king3 in Elise Gravel/s world, and we must all bow to those feelings in ourselves and others.
Rather than arguing for the universality of specific actions or traits, the author uses her perceived distastefulness of sex/gender differences to argue for an emotional basis for gender.4 She correctly admits that the bodies of men and women are different, but decides that it’s important to clarify for children ages four to eight that there are some people born intersex.
The following pages (pp. 12-13) introduce these pre-schoolers to “gender identity,” with children claiming, “When I was born, I was called a girl but I feel like a boy.” and “I feel like I’m both a boy and a girl at the same time.” Gender identity is defined as “how we feel inside,” and children are encouraged to describe their own perceived gender and pick out some pronouns to go along with it (pp. 14-15).
The Bad Guys
Now that the author has stated that feelings should determine all of society and that “we ALL deserve to be loved, protected, and respected,” (p. 16) it’s time for the kid gloves to come off: “Unfortunately, not everybody agrees. Some people don’t believe that all humans should have the same rights.” (p. 17)
After making some odd claims about gender roles,5 Gravel misrepresents the traditional marriage argument against same-sex marriage by saying that, "Some governments even made laws telling people who they're allowed to fall in love with. Do you think all people should be allowed to love whoever they want?" Rather than treating people she disagrees with with the respect they deserve, Gravel sets up a flimsy straw man.
I understand that this is a book for children, so it can’t deal with the traditionalist view in any sort of comprehensive way. But Gravel brought up intersex people on an earlier page, despite this being a tiny percentage of the population. Marriage traditionalists were a majority even in America until fairly recently. She could at least treat this factually rather than saying that we do not believe that people should love each other. This isn’t about opposing love in general, as Gravel implies. It’s about one type of love, eros, and marriage.
The reason Gravel does not treat her opponents on this matter with respect is that this book is propaganda. She even states her vision toward the end of the book:
“The good news is that the world is changing. It is easier to be who we really are, and we can find friends and allies who support us. Can you imagine how free we would feel if things changed even more in the future?”
The purpose of this is to provide buckets of coal to little kids boarding the Progressive train so it can keep chugging along for generations to come. Where is the train going? Who knows? But imagine how it will feel.
This book does not have page numbers, so I am citing these counting from the title page.
There are some gender differences that are reflected in actual rules (e.g. public shirtlessness), but none of these are in the book.
Or queen. Or whatever the non-binary version of a monarch is.
"And what does it mean to be a girl or a boy? Do we have to be one or the other? Or can we be both at the same time, or neither?” (p. 10)
“Men have been told that they shouldn’t: … clean the house." Do you think these laws and rules are fair?” (p. 19) With all of the accounts we have of poor Victorian men fighting for the right to clean their own houses, it is hard to argue against this one.