Gender Stereotypes In His Story Of X By Lois Gould

he Story of X, by Lois Gould is a cheerful, optimistic glimpse of the Joneses, quest to raise their child, X, without the typical gender stereotypes in which we all fall prey to. Written in the 70’s, first as a magazine article then as a children’s book, Gould was ahead of his time. The parents were selected by a group of scientists to take part in the top secret experiment simply known as Project Baby X. The project was fully funded and had a budget totaling twenty three billion dollars and seventy two cents which was all encompassing from food and clothing, medical and education expenses and even included incidentals like tooth fairy money. The scientists had an official instruction manual prepared to guide them along the way. Wouldn’t it

Society has taught us that the clothing we select somewhat defines our normalcy. Children’s gender neutral clothing is very hard to find. Even when locating a pair of red overalls today, they usually have some type of male associated emblem on them like a football or a truck. As author, Jeanne Maglaty points out, “Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the two colors were not promoted as gender signifiers until just before World War I—and even then, it took time for popular culture to sort things out” (Smithsonian, 2011). As pointed out in her article, with the onset of ultrasounds and prenatal testing, the more individualized clothing, nursery items and accessories became. Today, we are not only inundated with gender specific clothing but the color scheme has also crossed over to Legos, notebooks, sporting equipment etc. It is a merchandisers dream and a consumer’s

Their visitors had a difficult time complimenting or gifting the baby without knowing its sex type. They wanted to compliment her as a female on her beauty and him as a male on his strength but could not do either. In the gift department they received very gender specific items like a pink romper and a football helmet of which they were delighted in but the givers were only embarrassed and confused by not being clear on X’s specific gender. At school, X was faced with being pigeon holed into certain activities like basketball with the other boys or basket weaving with the girls. Social identity is a sense of who we are based on the group we belong too. Traditionally, males are perceived as being stronger, better at sports and rough whereas females are thought to be softer, drawn to arts and crafts and objectified by their