Boys Will Be Boys--That’s All Our Society Will Allow

Sandy Banks has it backward when she writes that our “cherished perceptions” about female gender roles are falling away slowly (“Life Changes in the Flash of a Pompom,” Oct. 8). They are gone--as they pertain to females. But sexist ideas are alive and well as they pertain to boys.

Witness how the whole World Little League tournament was thrown into chaos because a few boys wanted to play on girls’ teams, just like girls play on boys’ teams.

The perception today is not that “little girls do not play Barbies and football,” but that real boys must not play Barbies; it is not that girls shouldn’t “take it to the basketball court,” but that a boy could never “put on glitter nail polish” before doing the same. It is the straitjacket of male identity that is not falling away.

MARTIN CONNOR

Adelanto