Story: Nursery Rhyme? More Like Gender Role Story Time

"What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails

That's what little boys are made of

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And everything nice (or all things nice)

That's what little girls are made of"

-The Nursery Rhyme Book by Andrew Lang

This specific nursery rhyme caught my eye as I was paging through different options because of how it entrenches gender into something as basic and formulative as a nursery rhyme. These rhymes are often children's first introduction to complex structures within the English language, and a heavily gendered construction of language, especially so early on, only serves to permit and promote the permeation of gender roles in society. The picture below is actually a map of Europe that shows what countries have gendered grammatical constructs (light blue- non-gendered language/red- gendered languge). For more information, check out the Wikipedia article here. As such, I rewrote the poem in order to make readers a little more aware of the underlying assumptions in the original rhyme. Its also my first attempt at a "slam" poem, which was fun to experiment with! 

Map created by Wikipedia user Arhadro

Source: Wikipedia

What are little boys made of, made of, what are little boys made of?

Cells and hormones and hands and feet; that’s what little boys are made of.

But unfortunately, we expect them to be

Made of chivalry and machismo and emotions we can’t see

Out of the womb, they are allowed to cry

But as time goes on, their eyes learn to lie

In our society, a man who refuses to feel

Is held up as the picturesque ideal

A ruthless machine of primordial instinct

Power and status is what makes them distinct

So little boys might be made of biological parts,

Stomachs and eyes and ears and hearts

But we fill their brains and it takes a toll

On our collective health and collective soul

Because when we tell someone who they are,

We’ve crossed a line, we’ve gone too far.

And maybe one day, we wont ex-

Pect a boy to be defined by a characteristic sex

Maybe he was born a she or a they,

But it isn’t for us to have a say.

Little boys are made of whatever they want to be made of.

But what are little girls made of, made of, what are little girls made of?

Sugar, and spice, and everything nice; that’s what we think they’re made of

We act as though a Barbie figure is the default,

And anyone who doesn’t have her frame is at fault

For not being pretty or beautiful or demure

And I doubt that this poem is going to be the cure

To our convoluted way of evaluating 

Assessing a body and assigning a rating,

Telling her to leave science to the boys,

And to play with her pretty pink toys,

And much like boys, not all girls are born women,

Some are supposed to be tough and mean and masculine,

But like I said before, and I’d say every day,

It isn’t up to us to have a say.

Bibliography:

"What are Little Boys made of?" from The Nursery Rhyme Book by Andrew Lang