How Baby

For the longest time I thought that an integral part of being taken seriously as a woman was rejecting femininity and its trappings: pink, beauty, gentleness, et cetera. So, I thought that by arbitrarily forbidding the dreaded pink from entering her wardrobe and toys, I would save Momo some of the heavily gendered socialization that goes on at her age. But as time goes on and I see her move effortlessly between ‘boy’ things and ‘girl’ things without any guidance from me, I wonder how effective that strategy would be. If I cut out the pink and the feminine from her life, wouldn’t she get the message that there’s something wrong with femininity… and herself? What’s in that box, mom? Oh, never go in there, that’s where we quarantine everything that marks people as feminine, and you definitely don’t want to be feminine. There is room in a non-traditional gender presentation for pink (and dresses, and flowers, and makeup), just as there is room for blue (and jeans, and trucks, and dirt).

(Also, though, she looks really good in pink and I super can’t wait to dress her up like a princess and bawl my eyes out at Disneyland. Hormones are a hell of a drug.)

This strip guest stars Mike Thorpe! Thanks for being my patron! Wanna be in How Baby? Consider pledging to support me on Patreon!