"Tedious gender steretotypes"

Emily Bazelon has a piece up at Slate all about her sons' enthusiasm for space and her complete lack of interest. And she says something really interesting:

"Also, and inconveniently, my boredom plays straight into tedious gender stereotypes I hate to reinforce. What's the message I'm sending: Men are from Mars and women are from … not even Venus?"

I hate to be so blunt about it but Bazelon is not reinforcing the stereotype, she is being the stereotype, living it. This is not about how Bazelon acts, it is about who she is right to the very centre of her being.

Bazelon goes on to say:

"Simon and I recently read aloud The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, in which a girl in Texas at the turn of the 20^th century drinks in Darwin and helps her grandfather look for undiscovered species. I recommend it. But a book is no substitute for a mother who shows rather than tells her sons that women do science, or at least appreciate its wonders."

Now she is talking about acting, about behaviour. But behaviour is not what you are.

And why does she feel the need to make this effort? The boys don't seem to be having any trouble working up enthusiasm for science without their mother's help. What is it that she wants to give them: a sense that women are also enthusiastic about science? Well, some women are.

But she isn't interested. And, again, sorry to be blunt but you can't fake these things. Any attempt to act differently her kids will see through. She could change, but it would mean changing her whole life. She would have to read different things, do different things and, yes, believe different things than she currently does. And she'd have to keep doing them until she became a different person. And Bazelon isn't going to do that.

And here is the thing, her boys are going to go to high school and they are going to notice that most girls are just like their mum. We hope they will be enlightened enough to notice that girls are plenty smart enough to do science but, unless they are willingly blind, they are also going to notice that most girls aren't interested in science. And people don't get to be very good at things they aren't interested in.

So how exactly does it help to call this thing that her sons are bound to notice a "tedious gender stereotype".