Ranty Rant Rant

I've ranted about something similar to this in the past, but here I go again.

My legal assistant has two sons and no daughters. Today she said something about how people with daughters are always telling her how much easier boys are to raise than girls. I was kind of surprised to hear that, but another legal assistant in the office chimed in and agreed that girls are much more difficult to deal with.

I GET SO ANNOYED BY THIS. First of all, I just flat-out disagree that boys are easier. The vast majority of criminals and juvenile delinquents are boys. Boys are statistically much more likely to have autism. Girls are more likely to do well in school and go to college. So why do my co-workers think girls are so much harder to deal with?

Because "girls have more drama. They're dramatic."

Seriously? I happen to think that's a stereotype. I have a lot of female friends, and I would categorize very few of them as the "dramatic" type. You know, there are stereotypes we could apply to boys, too, like they're violent, prone-to-temper, etc. But noooooo, we'd never stereotype boys like that.

The issues of stereotypes aside, even if someone does think all girls are drama queens, maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe it's because our society loves to dress little girls in clothes that label them as "princess," "diva," "shop-a-holic," or yes even "drama queen." Hmm, could it be that girls act like dramatic little divas BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS ARE ENCOURAGING THEM TO ACT THAT WAY BY THINKING THAT IS JUST WHAT EVERY LITTLE GIRL SHOULD BE LIKE? So we condition little girls to think that their clothes, shoes, boyfriends, etc, are the most important things in their lives, and then we put them down for being "dramatic"? It's so annoying. There are plenty of little girls, and women, in the world who are not drama queens, likely because they were raised in a way that didn't reward or praise that kind of behavior.

But not only that, what are we really saying when we say that girls are harder to raise than boys because they're dramatic? Is it because they get upset over their relationships? It seems to me that we're really saying we don't like to deal with the emotions THAT GIRLS DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM EXPRESSING. Seriously, I guarantee you little boys feel every bit as many emotions as little girls do, but maybe they just express them ins different ways. Frankly I think it's healthy for kids to learn how to talk through their issues. I have heard so many of my married women friends bemoan how they have to "train" their husbands (gross) and teach them how to be in a relationship. Hmm, I wonder why their husbands don't know how to communicate. Could it be that because anyone who talks about their feelings gets derogatorily labeled a "drama queen"? Could it be that we praise how "easy" boys are to raise because they DON'T express their feelings? Ugh. I hate society.