boy, oh, boy

I was sitting in a doctors office today and the "The Producers" was playing on the TV. I have always wanted to see this movie but somehow never have, so I sat down to watch. There was a scene on that had one man dressed in a pink dress and frilly hat.  There was another mother in the waiting room with her two boys (maybe 1 and 4 years old) who were also watching. When she saw the man dressed like that on the screen she said to her 4 year old son, "What is that man wearing? Is he a girl? No! He's a boy!" and laughed. I was so shocked by this statement, as innocent as I am sure it was. It just makes me feel so bad for our boys. My boys. Boys and men everywhere. I feel like in so many subtle and not so subtle ways, they are pigeon holed into behaving, dressing, loving, thinking and even feeling in such a narrow, unimaginative and inexpressive way. No wonder the society feels that men have difficulty with communication or expression of emotions. We have made them scared to. What message did that mom send to her child today? We have taken our bright, beautiful, creative and emotional baby boys and turned them into miserable robot men that go out and run our country. Is that what we want? I am sorry, but I think enough is enough. We have to stand up for the boys. We have to expose and allow them the same access to this world that we do girls. We have to stop teaching them that there is only one kind of "real" boy in this world and show them that the world has no limits. We teach our girls that they can do anything boys can do and  now we now have to teach our boys that they can do anything girls can do too. It all starts with what we tell them. It all starts with what they hear us say. It all starts with you.