It started when my son was only a few months old. I had taken him the CBD with me, for my weekly therapy session with the social worker I was seeing for postpartum depression counselling.
There was a chill in the air, and I worried that his little cotton pants would ride up and expose his legs, so I put on his sister’s old baby leg warmers - mostly white with small pink and purple hearts. Who would care? He was a baby. I stopped by a friend’s house. She immediately laughingly told me she'd buy him boys’ leg warmers, if I wasn’t going to. I couldn’t believe it.
Gender bias is something we are used to talking about. I have fought every gift my two girls have received that has been pink, when it could have been neutral colours. I have watched proudly as my daughter answered the question “Are you a princess?” with “No, I’m a superhero.” It hadn’t occurred to me boys were facing a similar stigma, until I heard about Canadian photographer Kirsten McGoey’s project, #aboycantoo.
“This project began almost like a love story to my middle son, to show my love for him,” McGoey says. She and her husband could see the second of their three sons gravitated toward colours, clothing and activities most boys shunned, even when he was only 2.
He preferred rainbows, sparkles, dancing and reading, while other boys were playing sport and watching television. “Never once did we question the validity of those choices, but I realised very quickly that others wouldn’t feel the same way."
Feeling inspired by American photographer Kate T Parker’s project, “Strong is the New Pretty”, which celebrates girls as active and rambunctious and anything but what is stereotypically considered feminine, McGoey recognised quickly that what she had started with her son could involve other boys as well. She decided to feature boys making choices that didn’t fall into the gender stereotypes they typically face.
McGoey’s 9-year-old son has been fairly lucky so far, in that he hasn’t experienced much in the way of bullying for the clothes he wears or his activities. That’s not to say that friends and family didn’t express their concerns, especially when he was younger and more prone to choosing pink over blue.
It seems, though, that their insistence on standing by his choices, and defending them, have yielded a boy who is sure of himself and who doesn’t mind telling people that pink isn’t a girl’s colour.
But not all the boys involved in #aboycantoo are as fortunate. Some have to deal with family members who fear their interests may mean they are gay. “They’re the ones that I’m trying to influence,” McGoey says, “I’m talking to moms and dads who are saying ‘Finally, someone understands what we’re going through’. They might be a good cook, reader or dancer. So it’s a way to celebrate them.”
What McGoey has seen in some of the boys she has photographed is a growing sense of self, and of their relevance in the world, through the art they are pursuing. Brendan, 15, a dancer involved in the project, has become aware of the positive impact he could have on younger male dancers. For these boys to be role models for others who may be struggling is crucial, and that is evident from the volume of messages McGoey has received from all over the world, thanking her for starting this project.
Now that my own son is 2 and exercising a bit of autonomy, I have watched him choose pink over blue, trying on his older sister’s sparkly necklaces, and yes, I put ponytails in his hair every time he asks for them.
I also see him carry his Thomas the Tank Engine to bed. I see how much he loves to sing and dance, and I also see him squeal in delight when we drive by a construction site and he spots a crane.
My job, as his parent, is to let him explore it all. We fight against the message of girls needing to be pretty and preferring dolls and clothes over trucks and mud, but we’ve forgotten about the boys.
Dinosaurs and monsters never seem to come in pink, do they? And why can’t little boys wear flowers? McGoey’s #aboycantoo project celebrates boys for making brave choices. It celebrates all the facets that are part of a well-rounded male, no matter how he identifies.