Are women cleaner than men?

By age 5, people expect girls to be cleaner than boys. Around the house and at work, men are only slightly less clean than women. Listen in to learn more about the Hygiene Hypothesis, and how being cleaner might not be healthier for women.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and Caroline spring has sprung. It
is now April, and it's time for spring cleaning, right, Yeah,

(00:25):
I get all that pollen off your car. Do you
do the spring cleaning thing? It depends I if I'm bored. Yeah,
but I usually am too busy to think about it.
I do think about it. That's good. I don't tend
to do it though. Well, we're talking about whether women
are cleaner than men, and you have a male roommate,

(00:49):
your dude roommated roommate, and you talk to me about
how you guys do have some some differences in your
cleaning approach. Yeah, dude roommate is super neat. He gets
mad if I leave shoes or purses in the living room.
But he's not clean as in cleaning dishes, sprang down counters, vacuuming.

(01:09):
I I'm the opposite clutter. I'm naturally a bit of
a clutterbug, uh, which I can handle, but I can't
stomach a dirty kitchen for instance. Now with the wouldn't
that if he can see though a pile of dishes
in the sink? Is that not? Does that not mess
with his neatness? Well, see, the thing is due roommate
doesn't cook very much, so there's never quite a stack.

(01:32):
It'll be just like a pot that sits low in
the sinks, so it's not in his field of vision necessarily.
That makes a lot of sense. Um, well, we're gonna
get into more about the differences in how you know,
women and men are clean or not clean, And we're
looking mostly at hygiene kind of stuff, and I think

(01:54):
that we could agree that the general assumption is that
women are cleaner than men, right, Yeah, Men have the
whole thing like, oh, they're just messy guys. They're boys,
they're dirty, you know, in childhood there's a whole thing
about girls are made of sugar, spice and all things
nice boys or snip snails and puppy dog too. I
don't know that if you've ever been to a public restroom,

(02:16):
I don't think you could argue that women are necessarily
cleaner than them. That's true, But as far as the
standards of cleanliness, what people tend to expect clean wives
out of boys and girls. There was a study that
came out of Oregon State University by Sharon Klohe, who's
the philosopher UM and she talks about how the standards

(02:39):
of cleanliness are generally hire for girls, even by the
age of five, and it has a lot to do
with differences such as girls being dressed in dresses whereas
boys are in more rough and tumble cargo shorts or
denom pants denom pan denom pants the gene um and
she talks about how these gendered norms of cleanliness go

(03:03):
back to nineteenth century US in British schoolyards, where physical
cleanliness was really taught in school as a form of morality,
and for girls especially, that emphasis on physical hygiene extended
to how they carry themselves and presented their bodies. The
whole cleanliness is next to godliness and the whole virtuous

(03:23):
woman thing checking themselves. So Chloe would say that from
the earliest age, girls are acculturated to be cleaner than boys.
I don't know if that would necessarily apply to me.
I don't know. The more the longer we do this
podcast together, the more I think my childhood was very
strange and atypical for girls. I did wear a lot

(03:45):
of dresses because my mother, like would still want to
dress me in smock dresses if she could, But so
I always need to change out of the dress and
go outside and play. But when my parents built their house,
they didn't finish off the backyard for years and years.
So it was just like this huge mound of Georgia
red clay, and I would slide down it on my
butt in my cute pink shorts, and my mother would

(04:07):
yell at me, and I'm like whatever, I like the mud,
sassy little Caroline and shaking my finger like whatever, Sally. Yeah,
I was a mix of both of those on the
one hand, wearing lots of dresses. But then as I
got a little bit older, I wanted to be more
tomboyish and play with my older brother and get messy

(04:28):
and stuff. So maybe it is more of an age thing.
But the question of our you know, women clearer than men,
is looking more into our patterns of cleanliness in adulthood,
because for me, I have lived with guys and girls,
and I gotta tell you, Caroline, the guys have been cleaner. Overall.

(04:50):
Women can be very messy, we can be What's up
with that? What is that? Maybe all of the things
that we have, which we'll talk about with like office spaces. Yeah,
we do have a lot of things. That's yeah, yeah,
that's that's why my closet is such a terrible disaster.
But um, Kloe, you know ties in her theories about
gender and cleanliness to the hygiene hypothesis. Kristen, do we

(05:14):
want to get into this this now? We don't want
to confuse anybody. It's kind of a long drawn out hypothesis,
but basically the general idea of the hygiene hypothesis is
that a lack of childhood exposure to germs could be
responsible for adult allergies and diseases. Basically, the idea that
if the immune system isn't busy fighting off germs, it
shifts to developing more allergic tendencies. So you know, your

(05:37):
immune system gets bored and it's like, what can I attack?
Let's go for peanuts. Yeah, And some researchers think that
this is responsible for increased rates and things like asthma,
um and essentially, you know, we hear about it a lot,
like the question of whether or not like children today
especially are so sanitized that we are leaving their immune
systems defenseless. Towards germs like let him go outside good dirty, yeah,

(06:01):
and solo closed. Theory uh in in her paper is
basically that girls have it worse because we are expected
from a young age to be cleaner and you know,
more prim and proper than boys are. That we are
exposed to fewer germs and fewer contaminants, and so we
end up growing up to be a whole mess of allergic,
asthmatic and autoimmune disorder. Written people, and may I please

(06:25):
briefly talk about cooties? Oh? Yeah, sure you do? You
have them? I don't know. I've got my circle circle
dot dot immunization a couple of years ago when I
got my tetanus, So I probably get your due for
a boost. I probably do need a booster. But in
close paper that she published in the journal Social Science

(06:46):
and Medicine, she cited how sociologists have actually studied the
cooties phenomenon and so called pollution rituals that take place
generally among kids between six and nine years old. So
we're getting a little bit older, and she talks about
how girls are far more likely than boys to be
associated with cooties and be ostracized as carriers of cooties

(07:11):
utie carriers. Well, and she links that to the whole
high giene hypothesis and the high the greater expectation for
girls to be clean because you know, we're from a
young age. We're told that, you know, we we might
even have this thing called cooties, and to stay away
because we're just covered and covered in girl germ. Did

(07:31):
you ever make the paper? Well, okay, see that's the thing.
Everybody calls them fortune tellers, but at my school, we
call them cootie catchers. The thing where the with the
flaps and you put your fingers in it. Yeah, I
would open it, and I wish people could see my hands.
Our hands are doing that some flapping, but we would
use them like a beak to pick cooties off of
our arms. Oh well, again there is a bit of

(07:53):
a socialization gap with my home school. Well, when I
tell people cootie schers, they think I'm weird, So don't
worry about it. I think most people call them fortune
tellers can be weird together. Great, Well, let's talk about
let's talk about physical cleanliness, so in adults, because I
think we've established that overall, least expectation wise, girls clearer

(08:16):
than boys. But as we grow up, what happens when
we're left to our own devices? Is it the same? Well?
Yes and no. I think men are cleaner in summer
guards and women are cleaner and others. Um. There was
a survey performed by Cuticura hand Wash in that showed

(08:36):
that men are becoming more obsessive about hygiene. That might
be strong. Language obsessive might be a little strong. But
basically the survey in the u K goes against what
a lot of other studies have said in recent years,
mainly that there's no big difference in how much we
wash our hands, brush our teeth, and clean our sheets. Uh.
The survey said that both men and women wash their

(08:57):
hands ten times a day and change their sheets every
three weeks through so, which makes me want to puke seriously,
every three weeks? Am I the only one who changes
my sheets every week? I don't change my sheets every week? Well,
I'm not sleeping ever any time saying it's fine. Well,
there's a well, some surveys even find that men might
wash their hair more than women. But I'm gonna go

(09:19):
ahead and say that is not a hygiene thing. That
is a hairstyling thing. Because we're women are told to
not it's it's actually better for your hair. Do not
wash your hair. Spoiler. I color my hair and red
faith the fastest, so I don't want to. I only
wash my hair like once or twice a week. But
you do, you change your sheets more than you wash
your hair about the same. That's a great step. Um. Yeah.

(09:44):
There was another UK survey among a thousand college students
looking at that whole changing of the sheets thing, and
it also indicated that that male students might be changing
their sheets more of them change your sheets at least
once a month, with more than washing them once a week,
meeting the Caroline standard, whereas the female students wash your

(10:06):
sheets about every two months, which is surprising. I would,
I would say, ladies, what's wrong? But I remember, I
mean freshman year of college, I barely changed my sheets
either maybe once a month, maybe once a month. I
was there with the guys changing my sheets. Yeah. But
with the whole underwear thing, no big surprise here that

(10:28):
women change their underwear more often than men do. Yeah.
Forty two. This is back to the Cuticura survey of
men admitted to wearing the same pair of undepens more
than once without washing them, and this was often for women.
This was just and I would like to take this
time to point out that according to a Keeping It

(10:49):
Clean That's k l E. In infographic that Christen and
I found that's great comparing cleanliness and hygiene between the genders,
they said that poop just does that come off people.
You need to like really sterilize that if you're going
to be wearing you can get up to a gram
of poop in your underwear if you don't wash them. Yeah.
I was so excited slash disgusted by that fact that

(11:12):
I tweeted it oh well once I ran across it,
And I also texted it out of context to my boyfriend,
who was then very confused and asked if everything was okay. Well, okay,
so it's not just underwear and sheets that we have
to worry about. Let's talk about our actual physical selves. Uh.

(11:33):
An American Society of Microbiology study in two thousand five
found that women's hands tend to be cleaner than men's.
And how did they find this? Did they did they
go up to people and swipe their hands. No, they
just they just plain all spied on them in the bathroom. Yeah,
Harris Interactive Pulling watched over six thousand adults, six thousand,

(11:56):
twenty eight adults to be precise, just lingering in bathrooms
waiting to see if you're gonna wash it on tower
for nine hours. And they found that women wash your
hands a lot more often than men. And this is
in public restrooms and Caroline. The worst hygiene, unfortunately, was
found for both men and women at Atlanta's Turner Field

(12:20):
Home of the Braves in our hometown. Thirty seven percent
of men and sixteen percent of women left the bathroom
without washing. Yeah, but what about all the catchup and
mustard from hot dogs? Hey, these people are maybe they're
during a couple of expensive beers and they want to
get back out there to their expensive seats with their
expensive hot dogs, watching the expensive game. The biggest gender

(12:43):
disparity was at New York's Penn Station, where sixty percent
of men and of women wash their hands. Best hygiene
What up San Francisco in Chicago. San Francisco's Ferry Terminal,
Farmers Market in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, and
Shut Aquarium It's a long name were places where only
twelve of people left the restroom without washing their hands.

(13:05):
But when it comes to self reporting, also not so surprisingly.
When Harris Interactive went back and just called a sample
of a thousand adults, they reported washing their hands far
more often than the numbers would imply of the of
the people who were, you know, scouting out actual handwashing instances.
But the good news is hand washing is getting better.

(13:28):
And it might seem like, oh, this is handwashing doesn't
really make that big of a difference. Yes, it does
make a massive difference in terms of disease prevention, just
basically washing your hands. And I mean I've heard people argue.
When I say people, I mean boys. I've heard boys
argue that, well, it's not like I mean, I'm touching
a whole lot of stuff in the bathroom when I'm
in there. They're getting and I'm like, no, think about
all the stuff you're touching before you go to the bathroom.

(13:49):
You want to wash all that stuff off anyway. Yeah,
so you know, we're not perfect, but we're getting better.
And the American Society of Microbiology UH followed up and
in two they went back to the same places. Kristen
Turner Field was still the dirtiest, except for the women
percent of the women, it was still the worst for men.
Yeah sorry sorry. Thirty five percent of men at Turner

(14:11):
Field in Atlanta did not wash their hands, but percent
of the women observed did. That is commitment because those
lines can get crazy, can But um, the most likely
place for men to wash their hands still the Chicago
Museum mentioned eighty eight percent of men. Maybe intellectual types
pay better attention to hand hygiene. Yeah, yeah, I don't know,

(14:31):
but they were very happy to report and I'm happy
to read it that the study found that about eight
percent of people all together wash their hands, which is
a jump from seventy seven percent in two thousand seven
and sixty eight percent. And I bet that does have
to do with more public health awareness in terms of

(14:52):
washing your hands, the benefits of washing your hands and
disease prevention, because we've had a couple of animal related
flues that have sur reculated swine flu, bird flu, zebra flu,
giraffe flew all over the place. Um, but when we
do wash there some researchers think that our motivations and
by army men versus women might differ. And this is

(15:13):
coming out of the American Journal of Public Health in
October of two thousand nine. And what the researchers did
was put up these flashing pro hand washing messages in
front of in a public restroom, in front of the
soap dispenser, and it would change every time to see,

(15:34):
you know, for a different tack. So some of them.
Some of the messages were more discussed oriented, such as
don't take the loo with you, wash with soap or
soap it off all eated light. Yeah. Uh. There were
other ones that were related purely to being informative, which

(15:57):
was water doesn't kill germs, soap does. Uh. They found
that that men really responded to the disgusted messages, whereas
women were more likely to wash their hands that they
were armed with knowledge. One that performed well for both.
I'm gonna let Kristen read it is one tied to
social norms. Is the Poston next to you washing with

(16:17):
soap that was just solid up talk right there? Uh
had that um And that makes sense because you know
it is calling you out. It's a little bit of
a public shaming if you're not washing your hands. But
the thing is, though, in post interviews, when the researchers
would wait outside the bathroom and say, hey, gal, did

(16:38):
you wash your hands? Yeah? Did you see that message?
Not really, so they weren't really sure whether or not
it just happened to be a discussed, a pro discussed message. Yeah,
maybe it was something more subliminal. And I did a
little bit more digging on this whole discussed aspect of hygiene,
because there is a ton of research out there on

(17:00):
the emotion of disgust, how it differs for men and women,
are sensitivity to that, and how it's linked to things
like not only hygiene, but also morality, sexuality, etcetera. And
there are some studies that would suggest that discuss sensitivity
it's higher among women, which would contradict this this study

(17:21):
finding that don't take the loo with you is more
effective for men. But I don't know either way. I
think um, I would I would buy the whole thing
that the social norm thing of hey, you know you're
you're gross if you're not washing your hands because everybody
else is doing it would be effective. Now, what about teeth? I,

(17:46):
for one, I'm a bad flosser. I'm gonna go ahead
and admit that I feel like I'm in a safe
space to talk about it, and I'm a bad flosser too.
I I try, but really it's mainly just after I
eat popcorn. Um. An American Dental Association study in two
thousand four found that more Americans are saying now that
they brush their teeth after every meal, but women still
outpaced men. A quarter of respondents in this survey that

(18:09):
they brush their teeth after every meal, more than twice
the number reported six years earlier. So we're making strides.
Congratulations everyone. Yeah, and women, though, are still more likely
to have a regular dentist get their checkups more often.
Men will tend to go years between dental checkups. Women
are also more likely to brush twice a day, so

(18:30):
there's a bit of an oral hygiene gender gaps still there.
What's up? What's up with people who only brush their
teeth once a day? Uh? Maybe it is a time thing.
I don't know. I'm really not sure. Just like I
changed my teets once a week, Kristen, I washed my
air brush my teeth twice a day. I'm looking at

(18:50):
all of you very disappointed. But let's take it to
the workplace, because you know what place is teeming with
your your desk? Oh? Yes, um Clorox Company has sponsored
a number of studies. Not so surprisingly, I feel like
I've said not so surprisingly like twenty five times in

(19:12):
this podcast. By the way, not so surprisingly, I know.
But Clorox sponsored a number of studies on germs and
our cleaning habits. And one of these studies, which was
conducted by University of Arizona professor Charles Gerba in two
thousand seven, it found that women's desks harbor three to

(19:35):
four times the number of bacteria than men's desks, and
this was looking at more than one hundred offices around
New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, d C, Oregon, and
the University of Arizona campus. And Gerba attributes this to
women having more interactions with small children, keeping food and

(19:57):
makeup at the desk as well. And even though our
desks might be neater, they are dirtier, largely because of
the food in the makeup. Yeah, cosmetics, handlesitions and food
are microorganism magnets um. The worst offender overall, though, was
men's wallets, because they're in that warm back pocket that

(20:18):
just serves as an incubator for bacteria. But not so fast, ladies,
you're not off the hook either. Most handbags have tens
of thousands of bacteria on them, just just to let
you know. Bacteria levels of two hundred are considered safe.
But don't worry men's wallets or four times dirtier than that.
You know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say that

(20:40):
maybe I have very low discuss sensitivity with the in
terms of pathogen disgust because it doesn't bother me. Our
bodies are teeming with bacteria. Sure, but just don't put
your purse down on the bathroom floor or anything. That
is a good point, but one thing to keep in mind.
I mean, it's not hopeless, don't worry. Fewer bacteria were

(21:02):
found on desktops that were regularly sanitized, So keep those
antibacterial wipes around or sprays whatever you feel like using.
I I have a huge, like industrial size canister of
of wipes because I feel like people get to all
the time at work. Well, that is sick building syndrome
is a thing, and researchers have attributed to bad habits

(21:25):
like people not cleaning their desks and and speaking of
women and food in the desk. Charles Gerba, that University
of Arizona professor, said something along the lines of uh
if the apocalypse ever happened, he would immediately just rush
to a women's workspace because of the amount of food
that we keep stowed away in our desk. I don't

(21:46):
have any food at the moment. I usually keep some
granola bars, but those are sealed up. Yeah, I don't
have anything. Which when you're hungry, the most oppressing thing
to do is open your drawer and only see utensils
that could be for food that's not there, your imaginary
hook food back when they had the in in the
movie Hook anyway, uh So, but the opposite was true.

(22:07):
Interestingly enough, in a plus one study may performed by
Scott Kelly, who's a biology professor at San Diego State University.
He looked at ninety offices in New York, San Francisco,
and Tucson and found that men's offices, not women, had
up more bacteria. So basically, just be aware people that

(22:31):
your workspaces gross, particularly if you eat at your desk.
You want to just clean that sucker off maybe once
a week or once every other week. Yeah, that's San
Diego State University study got a ton of press and
like thinking about all the stuff of you know, like, oh, well,
men have more oh, but handbags are so gross. All

(22:51):
the stuff, I feel like it all kind of comes
out in the wash pun there because I don't know.
I don't know that the jet that kind of jet
or difference matters that much. It's more of an overall
message of saying, you know, I just maybe we should
keep our spaces a little bit cleaner. Um. But once
we leave work finally and we go home, who is

(23:14):
doing a majority of that housework? We've talked about it
in podcast Divorce. We're not going to spend a ton
of time on it, but it's the women. Yeah, we
we as women are more likely to do more housework
more often. Well, we should say that is in a
male female combo household. Yes, and that's also in the

(23:36):
caroline and du roommate household. Also, not that we fight
about it or anything dot dot dot, but yeah, so
we reference that keeping it Clean info graphic earlier. According
to the research they did for that, men are less
likely to do some housework every day, not in general,
just every day, and that's of men versus of women.

(23:59):
But when they do in the house, it's more thorough. Yeah,
And the whole thing about men maybe waiting longer to
clean the house. But when they do it, they do
it really, really, really well. Um reminded me of a
recent article that was published in the Atlantic by Alexandra Brander,
who's a philosophy professor out at the University of Kentucky,

(24:21):
and she was talking about reasons why potential reasons why
men might do less housework than women in heterosexual marriages,
and she highlighted three major theories. One is the epistemic hypothesis,
which is basically, men didn't see their dad's modeling this

(24:41):
household clean behavior, so they're not gonna do it. Uh.
Motivational hypothesis, which would be house cleaning or running errands
is an unjustifiable time cost, so which reminds me of like,
you know, they might not do it every day, when
they do it, they're gonna do it really really well
to make it worth it. And one of the reasons

(25:03):
why the motivational hypothesis is compelling is because sometimes women
and I've been guilty of this as well, not just
with male but also female roommates. Um, women will come
behind and sort of sweep up behind them or even
redo what they did. For instance, with me, I'm a
stickler about dishwashers. Yes you are. I am, I have

(25:23):
I'm very good at loading it, and I feel like
you should not waste space. And I have been known
much two roommates chagrin to come behind them and reload
the Dishwah, I do that behind dude, roommate all the time?
Are you kidding? What? I just I imagine you might
have the same thought when you open the dishwasher after
a roommate, boyfriend whoever, has loaded it. You look at

(25:45):
it and you're like, in what way did this make
sense in your brain? Because things are like spread out
over the entire dishwasher and you're like, no, no, no, no, no.
The plates go here, spoons are over here, cups are
obviously on the hop to the right. Yeah. And and
it ties totally into that motivational hypothesis because man or woman,

(26:07):
if that's going on, you would say, you know what,
you're going to do the dishes because you're just gonna
do them anyway, whether I load the dishwasher or not.
And interestingly, that's something that Facebook CEO Sherl Sandberg has
brought up for you know, women who are married to men, saying,
you know what, if you want to split the household

(26:28):
chores fifty fifty. You need to let them do that
fifty because I think women sometimes unnecessarily kind of buy
into the whole acculturation of women being the chore doers,
the maids essentially around the house, and whether we are
conscious of it or not, and take on more than

(26:49):
we really have to, and it kind of continues that
whole epistemic thing, the motivational thing. And then there's also
the third uh the hypothesis brand under highlighted at The
Atlantic is the structural hypothesis, saying that basically the modern
workplace doesn't afford men the time to do it like
if they would if they could, which which I don't.

(27:11):
I don't think again, I feel like that though, you know,
like I guess what can be frustrating about my roommate
being such a neat freak is that I'll get home
and he'll resent me for throwing my purse on the
floor something like that, but neither one of us has
time to deal with it, so we end up, over
the course of the week building up these teeny tiny resentments.
So one of us finally cleans because we're both busy,

(27:32):
we both work, but as we pointed out too in
other podcasts, this issue of the division of the household
chores not such a divisive issue with same sex couples
because there aren't those, you know, those gendered norms of
you know, women clean and men yeah uh where you know,

(27:56):
it's kind of like you, you find your strength and
you stick to it. Like for you and I, we
should probably do the dishes, whereas if someone wants to
do the laundry, have at it. That is not my
favorite thing in the world to do. I feel like
laundry is such instant gratification. But I really won't get
into all of that because I really, I mean, I
could talk about yours. But once we circle back around though,

(28:20):
to the household cleanliness, you start to see that a
lot of the patterns that we have an adulthood do
trace back to those childhood gendered norms that start out
with the assumption that you know, a girls you need
to be cleaner than boys. You don't in appearance wise,
down to neatness and cleanness. So the question of whether

(28:44):
or not women are cleaner than men, I think the
answer is no, because there might be expectations, but you
and I both have plenty of clean, clean men, and
I know plenty of dirty women, like I have had
some female roommates whom I love dearly, But spaghetti bowls
were kept in bedside tables. Oh yeah. I won't even

(29:08):
get into any stories about women that I have lived
with who have destroyed spaces that we've shared anyway, So
maybe it would be a good thing for all of
us if we abandoned that that gendered notion that women
are the cleaner sex and just all start pitching in
and everybody wash your hands. And I'm really never going
to touch a male wallet again because those things are jeremy,

(29:29):
a male wallet, a male wallet. Uh. So I will
be curious soo to hear from listeners on this one,
especially folks with roommates out there, because cleanliness is such
a such a big factor I think for room I mean,
the number one thing I can think of with having roommates,
Like whenever fights would come up, it was about cleanliness, Yeah,

(29:51):
and that was it. It was about the dishwasher. Yeah.
Only if I could just live by myself in a silent,
uh cluttery, but apartment with a nice dishwasher, I'd be
happy paradise. Yeah, it does sound pretty nice. Well, listeners,
let us know your thoughts on whether men or women
are cleaner. I know you've got them. Send them our way.

(30:13):
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot Com is our email address.
You can also hit us up on Facebook as well.
And now back to our letters. I have one to
hear Kristen from Jenna. This is about our pole dancing episode.
She says, you talked about pole dancing in the latest episode,
and I just wanted to say that. I think it's
a very empowered thing to do, to tell those who

(30:36):
would scoffy your independence and strength as a woman that
they're wrong. So all the double standards and morality aside,
I think that means a lot. It's very admirable. I
look up to strong women like that personally, so thank
you for the perspective. Jenna. Well, I've got an email
here from Tina and it's about her daughter, who's five
years old and she's the youngest of four. She has

(30:58):
three older brothers, ages nine, thirteen, and sixteen, and she writes,
my daughter, since she could speak, has described herself as
quote a girl and a boy, and will explain that
she likes girrel stuff and boy stuff. She's as comfortable
in the two day old clothes, playing in the dirt
as she is in a princess dress with lipstick and
a tia. It's a nerving to some people, such as

(31:19):
my mom when she calls herself a boy and a girl,
even though they have no issue with her acting like
quote unquote one of the boys, and they try to
encourage her to you the word tomboy instead. My husband
and I have always let her describe herself however she wants,
and we tell her that she can be whatever she wants,
whenever she wants, and to try not to draw attention
to the labels. She starts kindergarten this year, and I'm

(31:40):
curious to see if the new pressures will change the
way she describes herself. And she does note that her
daughter has been in daycare, so it's even with that
kind of socialization, she still does see I'm a girl
and a boy. Yeah, so I thought that was kind
of interesting. So thanks to Tina and everybody else, we're
writing into mom stuff at the scuy rate dot com.

(32:01):
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