3 ms·
When I was 8 or so, a relative gave me a huge pink plastic box full of barbies and barbie accessories. I hadn't asked for it, and I wasn't entirely sure what to
by gemma 13y ago
When I was 8 or so, a relative gave me a huge pink plastic box full of barbies and barbie accessories. I hadn't asked for it, and I wasn't entirely sure what to do with it, but I said thanks and tried my hand at playing with barbies, because that's what was expected of me. After that, I kept receiving dolls as gifts--plastic dolls, porcelain dolls, dolls on stands, dolls in cases. I tried playing with all of them, because that's what I was supposed to do. I never got it, and I learned that I was abnormal because I didn't really like dolls.
What we tacitly expect of kids does shape them, to an extent.
- ps4fanboy 13y agoBut your example says that it doesnt?
- gemma 13y agoIt absolutely does. That feeling of abnormality is one of the things that helped push me into tech--I wasn't normal, so I went to a place where I hid my non-normalness in a way I never could (so thought my 15-year-old self) from real people. Great end result for me, but painful at the time. I'm looking forward to the day when tech isn't something girls like me get punted into by accident.