“What a Good Boy” and gender expectations
I've had several interesting conversations about gender roles in the past few days. Not gonna write a real entry about this right now, but wanted to quote the beginning of the Barenaked Ladies song “What a Good Boy”:
When I was born, they looked at me and said,
What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy.
When you were born, they looked at you and said,
What a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl.We've got these chains that hang around our necks,
People want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath.
I don't think the rest of the song is specifically about gender—there are plenty of other kinds of expectations and roles that we get put into—but those lines seem apropos.