Last year the Ms. Foundation expanded its popular feminist holiday Take Our Daughters to Work Day????? ® to include boys. It is now called Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day????? ®. This year the popular holiday falls on Thursday, April 22. Marie Wilson of the Ms. Foundation said, "Now we need to look at how girls and boys can progress together." However, this year the Ms. Foundation's plans continue to be doubly detrimental. It subjects boys to the same feminist propaganda girls have had to endure.
Beginning in 1995, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute began to expose this stealth feminist holiday that bred victimology in girls and left boys behind year after year. In a true lesson in "be careful what you wish for," it is now clear that the Ms. Foundation is including boys simply to expand their "gender sensitivity" program designed to retrain boys and girls and label boys as oppressors and girls as victims.
The Ms. Foundation distributes materials to reeducate boys and girls on "gender stereotypes," including posters, activity kits and booklets for parents, teachers and workplace hosts. Activity booklets explain that gender sensitivity programs are needed because some men have been "forcefully opposed to these societal changes."
The Ms. Foundation has also cleverly trademarked Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day????? ®, resulting in a commercial boon for them. Along with the activity booklets and materials, the Ms. Foundation also markets comic books on girls and boys "who rocked the world," journals, T-Shirts, calculators, disposable cameras, candy, buttons and hats. Many of the items are now sold out, no doubt due to the many corporations who are so eager to display tolerance toward feminists and women in the workplace.
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day????? ® materials explain that they are "designed to challenge limited-and limiting-views of gender roles." Past suggested classroom activities for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day????? ® ask students to imagine that they are living in a box. Questions that teachers should ask include "What do people say to girls to keep them in 'boxes'?" and "Can you think of anything people have said or done to you to keep you in a box?"
The Ms. Foundation's materials for children, parents and teachers state that the metaphor of "living in a box" is used because, "To be gay, disabled, female, too small, or too smart is to be perceived as an object of disdain."
Teaching young girls that they are "perceived as an object of disdain" gives them a false view of society and is hardly liberating.
Continuing with the box metaphor, the teacher is to instruct students to cut out pictures of "extreme stereotypes of women and men" and those "reinforcing traditional stereotypes." The students should then paste the pictures on the inside of a cardboard box. Finally, students should cut out pictures of women and men who are challenging stereotypes and paste them on the outside of the box. One can only wonder how much class time is taken up with this feminist drivel.
This activity is supposed to make children feel that they should be ashamed if they choose to pursue a traditionally male or female career, such as a firefighter or homemaker. It also demoralizes those with parents who have chosen traditionally male or female careers. A child is led to think that if his mother chooses not to work outside the home she is "living in a box" and trapped in a stereotype.
This year's activities go a step further and ask children to question traditional roles in "family life." The Ms. Foundation's "Sample Days" activities for children with a stay-at-home parent are a lesson in feminist propaganda. Rather than focus on the joys of raising children, the Foundation suggests that participants make a list of a stay-at-home parent's duties and assign a salary to each job. The underlying premise is that it is a lot of work for no (monetary) reward.
The Ms. Foundation's materials state, "Clearly, there is a need for engaging young people to think about their roles in managing work and family in the future." Their evidence is statistics that echo most Americans' own beliefs. For instance, in these feminists' eyes, one dastardly statistic is "Girls (81%) are more likely than boys (59%) to say they will reduce their work hours when they have children."
Similarly, in a Cosmopolitan magazine poll of 800 women, two-thirds said they would prefer to stay home with their children. These polling results - and the decisions of the many stay-at-home mothers - scare the antiquated feminists because it negates decades of feminist doctrine urging women to make decisions based on their careers and the good of the women's movement, not on what is best for their children and family.
Children, girls and boys alike, will always benefit from attention from their parents and teachers. However, our nation's daughters and sons will not "progress" because we teach our daughters that they are victims and teach our sons that they are oppressors.
Likewise, by discounting the choices of stay-at-home parents, especially mothers, feminists show their true colors as radicals who are out of touch with the real priorities of women. The activities of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day????? ® and its increasing effort to subject boys, as well as girls, to feminists' gender propaganda is outrageous. Parents should not be fooled by this feminist holiday's new politically correct name.
