Our Words are Our Own
The hard wooden curves of a sailboat frame are beautiful. Ocean surf crashing on a rock beach over thousands of years and grinding those stones down to sand, is beautiful. A fleck of blood hanging on a boys eyelid after a fight, glimmering with the promise that wounds will heal, is beautiful.
None of those things are distinctly feminine or girly. The word beautiful has no gender unless the person using it chooses to assign it one. It’s not syntax that prevents us from saying our sons are beautiful, it’s culture.
Beauty carries a notion of something rising above the grittiness of the world. Something aesthetic breaking out of the noise of the world. Handsome then is an attractiveness grounded in the grittiness of the world. As a culture we elevate our girls as princesses. They should be pure and above it all. Boys are the ones who are supposed to tough it out. They must be part of that rough world,
We don’t have to subscribe to those notions though. When we talk about babies we prefer beautiful regardless of gender. Some boys are beautiful, some girls are handsome. This can change moment to moment. If beautiful feels right, say beautiful. Never let language limit you; It is the world your mind inhabits. Take a cue from Shakespeare and Dr.Seuss and constantly redraw its borders.
for Leah. It’s pleasantly shocking to see you being one of ‘those girls’.
