when I was 8, I had these pair of roller skates I adored. unfortunately, my mom never let me go more than ten feet from the house so I was stuck skating on our tiny sidewalk. just to spite my mom, I decided to ride them inside the house when she went off to work.
evening came and I kissed my mom goodbye then slapped my skates on. the nice tile flooring was perfect for them. eventually I got tired and craved some hot chocolate. I should mention that I also had a pet goldfish in a glass bowl that we kept above the microwave.
so, I penguin walked over to the dish rack and pulled out a glass cupand filled it with water. I spilled some making my way over to the microwave, so when I opened it, my skates slipped. I quickly grabbed on to the microwave door for support, which ultimately caused the fish bowl to tip over.
I also dropped my glass of water so they shattered on the floor as I fell to the ground. My first thought was my fish who was flopping around on the tile so I grabbed another cup. At this point, I was bawling my eyes out, struggling to get a grip on my fish. My dad came in from the back door, confused to find this daughter in a pool of water and broken glass. when I got up, I was bleeding from a laceration on the side of my knee. I still have the scar to this day.
So, I’m in student government, and maybe once a week, we have nothing much to do. We call it homework day, but everyone just talks. (Our teacher is super chill)
The girl sitting behind me (Athena) brings goldfish to school everyday and everyone begs her for them, and we do favors for her to get some (bring her textbooks over, throw trash away, ect).
So the guy sitting next to me (Nick) jokingly says, “Athena, if I complement you will you give me goldfish?” Athena agrees. Nick’s complements are terrible. “Your…shoes…are, um, Vans” and “Your hair is long and dark.” But, it’s funny, so Athena still gives Nick a couple goldfish for each “complement.”
Without thinking, I look Athena right in the eye and say “well, I guess Athena’s FISHING for complements.”
wow I didn’t know fuckin chocolate eggs were gendered
OKAY LET ME TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT THE FUCKING PINK EGGS.
I work at a concession stand in an ice rink. We sell a bunch of chocolate bars and snacks and shit including Kinder Surprise eggs.
So one day this woman comes up to the counter with her two little kids, a girl who’s probably about 6 or 7 and a little boy, maybe 3 or 4. The mom asks what they want, the little girl points at the Kinder eggs and says “One of those!”. I asked if she wanted the white or the pink egg. She said pink. The little boy pointed to the Kinder eggs and says “One of those!”. I asked if he wanted the white or the pink egg. He said pink. HOLY SHIT IT WAS LIKE I OPENED THE GATES OF HELL. The mom absolutely FLIPPED and was like “YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE PINK EGG IT’S ONLY FOR GIRLS. YOU CAN GET THE WHITE ONE OR NOTHING AT ALL”. The little boy looked at his mom and said “But I want the same as ______ (whatever the sister’s name was)”. The mom completely ignored him and turned to me and gave me a death glare. “He can have the white egg.”
I had to give a little boy a white egg when he wanted the pink so that he could be the same as his big sister and he started crying. The mom just reiterated that the pink egg was for girls and told him that boys don’t cry.
And this is why we shouldn’t gender fucking chocolate eggs.
This is actually a relatively new thing, originally Kinder Eggs were all white like the ones on the left. I don’t know at what point they decided to make ‘girl’s’ Kinder Eggs, but I do not like it.
Holy shit do not even get me started on how moms constantly police their sons’ masculinity. I’ve seen mothers do it WAY more often than fathers.
I used to work at a bakery that specialized in creating custom cakes. We had this feature where we could print out any image off the computer and put it on a cake (with rice paper). One day this lady comes in and asks for an image we had of the baby Sesame Street characters. They’re all together with cake and confetti, and she asks, “Oh, well since it’s a boy, can you please change all of the little pink confettis into blue confetti? I mean, he’s a boy, you know.”
Confetti.
The fucking confetti.
It barely covered 5% of the image.
Another instance was when a lady asked me for an image of four superheroes to put on her son’s cake because her son was turning four. She admitted to not knowing any superheroes, so I offered the most obvious choice—The Fantastic Four. I pulled up a picture of them and she goes, “Oh no no, we can’t have that. Let’s do another one.” Confused, I pulled up a Justice League one with Batman, Superman, The Flash, and Wonder Woman. Again, she said no. I asked her if she needed anything specific (she didn’t know superheroes, why was she so picky?), and she just said, “Oh, it’s just that he’s a boy, you know? We can’t have a girl superhero on his cake.”
I nearly lost my shit. I did temporarily lose my customer service face and ask why, women have been superheroes all the time, Wonder Woman is iconic, etc etc and she was like, “It’s just that my son has been playing with Barbie dolls lately and I really don’t want him to end up… well, you know.”
This shit has got to stop. When you teach boys that certain things are only for girls, you’re limiting them and you’re teaching them that girls or “girly things” are bad. If you want gender equality as an adult, you better make DAMN sure that you’re teaching the same thing to your kids.
So this woman did not want her son to turn out ‘you know’ and her plan for that was to get him a cake with spandex-clad manly men AND ONLY MEN on it? I don’t think she thought that one through too well…
in sociology class we were talking about gender being assigned to objects and one of the male students started saying how forward thinking he is because he buys his daughter sports equipment and “boy toys”. I asked if he’d do the same if he had a son and he said “Of course I’d buy my son sports equipment”. I clarified “No, would you buy him dolls and other toys that are thought of as being for girls”. He turned around and didn’t answer.
Parents will pat themselves on the back for letting their little girls play baseball but a little boy with a Barbie is still considered an affront to society
