wearing pants

Today I subbed for a 5th grade class and had a nice time learning more about their classroom. I even got to witness a conversation about what it means to classify assisted pushups as "girl pushups." Their teacher, Naomi, talked about how the terminology infers that girls can't do "normal" push-ups because of gendered weakness. I liked it and saw that the students were interested and invested in making a collaborative vocabulary revision, but wish there had also been a conversation about how it's okay to be physically weak, boys and girls, and that strength can be measured in a myriad of ways. Maybe some more about the unrealistic and unfair expectation that cis-gendered boys should be physically and emotionally strong and impenetrable. I listened to an old This American Life about the term "Sissy" and how more effort is being put into making feminizing words non-pejorative over letting boys be free and feminine.