On the train again. Three small girls are with their mother. Two of the sisters are twins and there’s an older one. They are exuberant but not noisy. They’re giggly and playful. They aren’t demanding a lot of attention but their mother, during the 20 minutes I observe them, admonishes them, tells them to be quiet, directs them to sit still, confines them and restrains them constantly. She spends the train journey telling them off, repeatedly, The girls are dressed in traditional feminine clothes. Their hair is in plaits with ribbons and there are ribbons on their shoes. All of them have their ears pierced. Why do little girls need to have their ears pierced, unless they’ve asked to have it done themselves?
A man on the seat opposite me says cosily ‘they’re at that age.’ ‘Yes,’ I say, loudly. ‘And they aren’t doing anything wrong!’ But their mother was doing a lot wrong. She was giving them clear messages about acceptable female behaviour. Messages like ‘keep yourself small’, ‘keep yourself nice,’ and keep yourself quiet.’ I’m not saying that we shouldn’t all be quiet on public transport; we should. But kids are kids and these girls weren’t being especially noisy, as I said. The extreme feminisation of these three children bothered me. I wanted to lean over and tell the mother to back off. But I didn’t. Mothers hate being given advice about how to raise their kids. (I certainly did. Do people offer fathers unasked for advice to the same extent, I wonder?)
Liza Dezfouli 