“Saw a lady tell her son he couldn’t have a Wonder Woman doll because “that’s for girls” and it got me thinking about my experiences as a kid with similar situations and how society refuses to let boys have female role models and how Boys grow and develop sexism early on from these seemingly small interactions,” shared cartoonist Damina Alexander in a tweet.
Almost four years ago, he posted a comic strip on Tumblr about how his class laughed at as a kid when he wanted to write about Roald Dahl’s Matilda as a character he looked up to.
In a recent conversation with Kirkus Reviews, Damina shares, “My teacher was like, “Why don’t you pick a boy character?” But the girls in my class were allowed to pick boy characters. I thought it was really weird that she did that. I drew the comic while I was on the bus to grad school for my children’s literature program. When it went viral, I was a little upset because it’s not my best artwork. But I found that a lot of people connected with it—[boys who] liked Powerpuff Girls or My Little Pony growing up or idolized the pink Power Ranger, and people told them that they shouldn’t. There were also a lot of moms [saying], “My son likes Elsa from Frozen, or Barbie, and they’re swayed not to do that.” It’s OK for a girl to dress as Spider-Man, but if a boy was dressed as Wonder Woman, we’re like, “Oh no, you can’t do that.” Like, don’t look up to women, which is a really weird message. In a subtle way, we enforce an anti-feminist thing in children really early on.”
Even though this comic is as old as 2017, it makes sense even today and how unknowingly we may raise our boys to develop sexism.
