Week 31: Reese & Milk Choc Chip Cookies & "Tomboy"

Why this book?

This was a really interesting book and had me thinking about my childhood. I loved barbies AND hot wheels. I had over 50 hot wheels and loved my Tonka truck. I played with boys and believed I could do anything. When my Nono died of cancer when I was nine it was obvious to me that I would need to become a doctor to solve cancer. In case anyone is curious I ended up choosing Psychology and Sociology, so no I did not become a doctor. ⁠

⁠

Here are some interesting facts that I learned about this book:⁠

⁠

Did you know up until the late 1920’s pink was associated with boys and blue was associated with girls? Surprise surprise big corporations realized they could make more money if they separated out the gender clothing.⁠

⁠

In one study of over 1000 pieces of boys and girls clothing 66% of girls clothing had flowers, rainbows and hearts and only 3.9% of boys clothes had these. ⁠

⁠

In Sweden they have the most gender-neutral school where differences between boys and girls are de-emphasized.⁠

Sweden in 2009 introduced a gender-neutral pronoun “hen”.⁠

I learned a lot from the chapter “breaking the binary '' and did you know it wasn't until 1990 that the term “two-spirited” was used. ⁠

⁠

In the chapter “What Happens To Tomboys When Puberty Hits”, the author says that most women who identified as tomboys went on to male-dominated industries like tech and finance. Which is interesting because my first real job was a software developer. Yes I coded for a good year and it was not fun. And now that I think about it I am pretty sure I was the only female developer. ⁠

⁠

Curious who has read it and what are your thoughts on it?⁠

⁠