silveradept | Sforzando: Standing up to adult bullies to protect Costume Day rules

Remember an earlier story about a young boy who wanted to be Daphne for Halloween? The one who turned clucking heads of other mothers at his school because they thought he was a gay child and his mother was raising him wrong by not forbidding his costume choice? There's more to this story than just the initial bullying. In fact, the head of the church attached to the school got involved. He demanded that the mother of the Daphne child apologize for slandering the bullying mothers and to take down the post, claiming that she had acted inappropriately and scandalously by standing up for her child and posting about it, under the rubric of "taking offense where none was intended." Recall from the original that none of the children were scandalized, only the mothers. We wonder whether the vision of appropriate gender roles they have is akin to this Vanity Fair cover, where the women are all slinky, scantily clad, and hanging off the manly menfolk (with the exception of the "Exotic" feeding something equally exotic).

Now, it would be relatively easy to stomp simply on the "they were a religious school, rar, aren't the religious people stoopid" angle, but since there are kids involved, it's a lot easier to jam on "THINK OF THE CHILDRENS" and how they're being taught by their mothers about how society expects men to not want to dress as women, even on a costume day. Even then, though, that's really only deflecting off of the main point - The kids were okay with it. It might be that magical age of innocence where gender roles haven't been firmly planted in them yet, but with the way that kids have been bombarded with material from their parents, other parents, advertisements, toy selections, and the like, by this point they've got to have an idea about the blue/pink divide. Which they will be expected to exploit in the G.R.O.S.S. manner, usually, leading to the gender see-saw that is elementary schooling, at least until the hormones kick in, or so we're told. The kids should have been at the forefront of the shock, horror, and teasing, assuming they'd been properly immersed in the culture.

Except that it was costume day. You know, one of the few days a year when the rules don't apply? The time when everyone becomes bound only by the rules of theater, which say that when a fairy declares himself invisible and throws his hoodie up as the signifier, he's invisible, regardless of the cigarette he's smoking. Where young men have traditionally held female roles, because they have the range and the look for it, and because it was only until recently that the G.R.O.S.S. principle finally stopped applying. The hens that clucked missed the rules change. They sought to impose their rules, which for that day, were in the minority. If children can dress as dinosaurs, superheroes, aliens, devils, angels, saints, politicians, and any number of otherworldly, extradimensionally, and otherwise bizarre creatures, then it doesn't follow that the rules except dressing as a girl for costume day. The kids know this instrinsically. The kids-at-heart remember this, which is why they pine for costume day and wish there were more sanctioned days where they could show their desires to the world and not be societally censured for it. Anybody who's been at a convention, concert, or other event and seen or participated in cosplay understands how shared spaces suspend the rules pretty easily, and usually enjoy the time when the world outside are the strange ones with the odd customs. Point being, our societal norms routinely have holed ripped in them just through the gathering of enough like-minded individuals. Who are these women to assert that their rules are the correct ones and all others, including the children for whom costume day is ostensibly put on, must obey them?

Like many, when challenged on their assumption that their rules were the right ones, they sought refuge, hiding behind someone they perceived to be bigger and stronger, someone who held the actual power to make their way stick. You can riff here on how "the religious people are stoopid", if you like, but you're still missing the point if you do - you can strip the religion out of this story, and it still reads as a case of adults trying to crush a child. The bullies went to their "parents" to justify themselves and have him come out and say "My kid is perfect. Your kid must have done something to bring this on themselves."

So what happens next? Well, according to what actually seems to stop bullies, the mother of Daphne standing up to them and refusing to back down is the first part of it. If things continue in such a manner, then mom might have to react to such bullying with disproportionate force so as to discourage another attempt. Being known as someone to not screw with makes the bullies decide to go after someone easier as a target. We'll see whether there's another Daphne in the future, or something else that makes the hens cluck their tongues, and how the response from this parent goes. It's been pretty awesome so far.