Boys

Dirty Harry may be a highly entertaining character, but he is not a role model I would want my son to emulate. Young boys and men exposed to these sorts of stereotypes must be somewhat shaken to discover how little their inner life resembles this representation of heroism. In order to mimic the external impassiveness of these so-called heroes, how much of their true selves must they deny?

I’d like to think my son won his first (and only) beauty pageant because of his sparkling personality, curly mop of hair, bright blue eyes, and adorable tuxedo — but the truth is that he won because he was the only boy in the entire pageant. He won every category I entered him in, regardless of his looks, personality, or actions. He literally won just for showing up. It was the embodiment of both white and male privilege.

Let's be clear: There is no such thing as a boy book or a girl book.

Who wears short shorts? Hopefully, not five-year-olds.

So, it's well known that teenage boys just. can't. think about anything besides sex. Grades, sports, chores, family, friends, the future—step aside! Turns out girls can't concentrate on anything else either...we've just being assuming otherwise.

Little boys draw dump trucks, and little girls scrawl bunnies.