While looking throughout the scrapbook when I was digitizing, I came across a handwritten letter that caught my eye. A letter addressed to Joanne from her friend Richard, was an intimate and meaningful letter talking about Joanne’s courage to speak about her childhood in her booklets. Something that I found to be very interesting and relatable. Richard was applauding Jo for sharing her childhood story and reflecting on cooties and how she felt like some of the boys in her class didn’t want to be her friend. This letter was written in 1976 and I can assure you that the idea of cooties was still around n 1997 when I was in preschool. I also felt that boys didn’t want to be associated with me because of the peer pressure that was put on to them. Boys were always mean to girls, because it was what was expected of them. If a boy was friends with a girl, all the kids around them would make fun of him and say that he was in love or something along those lines. Liking a girl was seen to be the worst thing for a boy to do when they were of a young age. But where do these kids learn this idea that being friends with girls their age was the absolute worse thing ever. I remember how mean the boys were to the girls when I was younger, and when there was a boy that was nice to a girl they were called a girl. Once again being a girl was negative, during my childhood. As Richard noted in the letter ” I am sorry, Joanne for all of the wasted friendships that could have been but weren’t, for all of us”. I agree with this statement many boys were taught by someone , maybe a family member to disrespect girls whenever they talked to them or were around them. I truly believe that the gender roles that little kids learn from advertisements, toys, and even their parents is a primary factor in the way they treated girls in their class. When a little boy wanted to hang out with a little girl, the other boys would criticize him and make fun of him until he decided to obey his gender role. Boys were not supposed to be interested in feminine toys, and actions that his girl counterparts were interested in. Its sad that since these little boys didn’t want to be “called a girl” or worse that they would do the opposite and would be mean to their female peers in order to please their sexist friends.
