Could it be that Mariah Carey is more attentive to gender issues than most people in today’s world?
I, for one, think yes.
The other day, Carey appeared on the Ellen show and was asked by the aforementioned host if she could guess the sex of her baby. Carey’s response? That she would prefer if Ellen didn’t.
She said:
“I would prefer not. Because imagine if you’re a baby inside someone’s body. Do you really want someone imposing their sex ideas on you? Not really? I’m just saying. Would you want them to be like it’s definitely a girl … would you?
I find it impressive that Carey says that she doesn’t want to impose “sex ideas” on her child. I could be completely misinterpreting what she was trying to get across here, but either way, it’s an important topic to address, especially in my opinion, as I’ve spent a lot of time at Oberlin studying and discussing the many issues of gender identity. Relevant to Carey’s interview is the fact that at birth, children are assigned a sex, and in turn, a gender identity that they are expected to maintain. As children, we are more often than not presented with one option: if you have a vagina you’re a girl; if you have a penis, you’re a boy. As they grow older, these children are taught that any visible challenge of their assigned sex’s accepted gender characteristics (for example, manner of dress) is unacceptable, or merely ‘a phase.’
But you know what? Sometimes? They aren’t. And who is anyone to say that this is wrong? We’ve come a long way from saying that female-bodied people should always be housewives and that male-bodied people should never cry, but yet there is still such a stigma attached to how people choose to express their gender identity, and it’s rooted in the fact that we continually insist on making gender and sex synonymous.
My friend once said that when she has children, she’s going to send out birth announcements that say “It’s a BABY!” rather than including any indication of the child’s sex, because she doesn’t want her kids to feel that they have to conform to any societally constructed ideas of gender. And you know what? I’m all for that.
And I hope Mariah Carey is too. Because she’s reaching a lot more people than I am right now, and until such point in time as that changes … she’s gotta take the reins on this one.
No, I don’t believe Mariah Carey has such incredible depth of gender thought. In fact, I’m calling a lot closer to nutjob.
I understand not wanting to set gender restrictions, but really? Guessing the sex of the baby is not imposing anything. Does she think the baby is going to hear a correct or incorrect guess and develop a crisis from within the womb? “Oh no.. *Ellen* says I’m definitely a girl! Am I a girl? Do I want to be a girl? What is a girl anyways? What if I don’t want to be a girl? I’m so stressed!” Well, yeah, that may well be her concern..
Seriously?
Once again Kai, you are the voice of reason. And you properly say the stuff I’m thinking but can’t get out on only half a cup of coffee.
Also, I think that when she has the baby, if it’s a girl, we should expect to see her with a pink crystal encrusted pacifier in her mouth and Hello Kitty hair bows.
What she said didn’t seem like she was trying to avoid gender stereotypes at all. More like she was afraid of gender confusion. And that is the complete opposite of not wanting to assign a gender identity.
I would be more worried about imposing gender norms once the kid’s made its escape from the vagina. I work at a kids’ clothing store, and I kid you not, 95% of the newborn girls stuff is pink and 95% of the boys is blue. It doesn’t equal out colorwise until about 6T. It’s hard to decide where the newborn neutral colors go because everything is either pink or blue.
Nutjob was the first word that came to mind personally, so I’m gonna have to agree with the sane as far as I know Kai.
Lets see, if we follow Mariah’s beliefs, all clothing would have to be unisexed, no pronouns should be used (he/she), and even the word girl and boy should be changed to something else. Sheez..where does this end?
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I would think that a baby with a penis be called a boy, and a baby with a vagina be called a girl. At least until such baby can express their gender identity.
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I swear all of this political correctness nowadays makes me a nutjob!
@vchilds, there are some people who would really love the world you just described. Which is bizarre, because labeling a kid as boy or girl doesn’t mean much if you don’t automatically dress girls in pink tutus and boys in blue overalls.
I can kinda see why newborn clothes come in blue and pink. Until they’re a good bit older, it’s pretty hard to look at a kid and know what sex they are, and a lot of parents don’t like it when you guess wrong. so if they want the world to know it’s a girl, it’s rather prudent to make it obvious.
What bothers me a lot is when you get older – say, eight years old, and you want to buy the kid a toy. It’s obnoxious that they have bright pink GIRL aisles and blue BOY aisles with completely different toys.
You know it could just be more that she doesn’t want to start thinking of the baby as a specific gender herself.
I mean when you think about it, if you were pregnant and found out the gender of the baby (or even speculated about it) there would be certain thoughts that would pop up that would be gender specific and perhaps she doesn’t want to start getting into that frame of mind.