by Danise Cardona…

My daughter, 3 years old, has figured out the difference between girls and boys (the whole penis-vagina thing notwithstanding). Yes, it’s true: girls have eyelashes and boys don’t.

About a year ago she began to differentiate illustrated non-human characters by sex, usually pointing out “the girl one.” Really, though, how CAN you tell a male from a female cartoon flamingo? As a feminist parent my first question to her was “How can you tell?” Originally she found it hard to explain but as months passed she gave voice to the all-important difference: eyelashes.

Me: But doesn’t Daddy have eyelashes, too?
She: No.
Me: Yes, he does. He has long, dark eyelashes just like you.

An in-depth investigation soon followed. We discovered that not only does Daddy have eyelashes, but boys do and a lot of animals of both sexes do, too – even cows. And birds don’t have real eyelashes at all, but special bristles! Eyelashes help keep dust out of our eyes and tell us if something is too close to them, two things that are really important for both boys and girls. So why eyelashes for girls?

Me: A lot of people think eyelashes are pretty.
She: They are.
Me: Well, the illustrator used pretty eyelashes to show which one is a girl. Even though both boys and girls have eyelashes they made it seem like eyelashes are just for girls.
She: Daddy has pretty eyelashes.
Me: I know.

In the end, we learned the best way to tell a boy flamingo from a girl flamingo is to get clues from the story that explain the illustration… and that Daddy has pretty eyelashes. Mission accomplished. Sort of.

Ok, so now I want to put in all the feminist-speak that makes a quick, entertaining story totally boring but also specifically relevant to living the life of a feminist breeder. Identifying feminist issues in everyday interactions with our kids opens children up to potential epiphanies counter to non-feminist cultural norms and makes each object lesson relatable to others down the line.

In a nutshell the opening story addressed a gendered expectation of an arbitrary beauty standard. Of course, for a 3 year old it sounds more like “eyelashes are an important part of our body, not something to decorate our eyes” and “eyelashes are for boys and girls” and “how weird they drew eyelashes on one and not on the other, too.”

Keeping with the eyelash theme, we recently viewed an animated short of a Russian children’s tale, Here Comes the Cat, in which all mice had long eyelashes (but still wore gendered clothes because a kid just can’t see a town of mice, they have to see a town of anthropomorphic male and female mice – but that’s another post I suppose). From here we recalled our flamingo chat and praised this artist for drawing eyelashes on both boys and girls. Hopefully as more of these episodes pop up in daily life each tiny, offhand, feminist comment or quick analysis builds on another creating a critical thinker and fostering a questioning mind. In other words, cultivating a future feminist.

And that’s nothing to bat an eyelash at. Now please excuse me while I go apply some mascara.

Oh, damn.

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This post was written by Danise Cardona as part of The Feminist Breeder’s Guest Post Series.  To submit your own for consideration, please write gina(at)thefeministbreeder(dot)com