McGoey pushes back against gender bias

Canadian photographer’s project #aboycantoo celebrates young males for defending lifestyle choices

It started when my son was only a few months old.

I had taken him downtown with me for my weekly therapy session with the social worker I was seeing for postpartum depression counselling. There was a chill in the air and I worried that his little cotton pants would ride up and expose his legs while I wore him, so I decided to put on his sister’s old baby leg warmers. They were mostly white, but had small pink and purple hearts scattered across them. Who would care, though? He was a baby after all.

I stopped by a friend’s house before my appointment and she immediately commented on it, laughingly telling me she would buy him boys’ leg warmers herself if I wasn’t going to ante up. I couldn’t believe it. Gender bias is something we are used to talking about. I have fought every gift my two girls have received that has been pink, when it could’ve been purchased in neutral colours. I have watched proudly as my daughter answered the question “Are you a princess?” with “No, I’m a superhero.” It hadn’t occurred to me that there were boys out there facing a similar stigma until I heard about Canadian photographer Kirsten McGoey’s project, #aboycantoo.

“This project began almost like a love story to my middle son, to show my love for him,” says McGoey of Whitby, Ont.

She and her husband could see the second of their three sons gravitated toward colours, clothing and activities that most boys shunned, even when he was only two years old. He preferred rainbows, sparkles, dancing and reading voraciously, while other boys were playing sports and watching television.

“Never once did we question the validity of those choices, but I realized very quickly that others wouldn’t feel the same way,” McGoey says.

Facing a slow winter season, McGoey wanted a project she could focus on, so she could continue to hone her craft and get used to the new lighting in her studio. Feeling inspired by U.S. photographer Kate T. Parker’s project Strong is the New Pretty, which celebrates girls as active and rambunctious and anything but what is stereotypically considered feminine, McGoey recognized quickly that what she had started with her son could involve other boys as well. She decided to feature boys who were making choices that didn’t fall into the gender stereotypes they typically face.

McGoey’s nine-year-old son has been fairly lucky so far, in that he hasn’t experienced much in the way of bullying for the clothes he wears or the activities in which he takes part. That’s not to say that friends and family didn’t express their concerns to his parents, especially when he was younger and more prone to choosing ponies over trains or pink over blue. It seems, though, that their insistence upon standing by his choices and defending them have yielded a boy who is sure of himself and who doesn’t mind telling people that pink isn’t a girl’s colour.

Not all the boys involved in #aboycantoo are as fortunate, though. Some have to deal with family members who aren’t sure what to make of their interests or who express fear that their interests mean they are gay.

“They’re the ones that I’m trying to influence,” McGoey says. “I’m talking to moms and dads who are saying, ‘Finally, someone understands what we’re going through,’ and the boys who sit and watch their brothers and sisters get medals for everything they do. They might be a good cook or a good reader or a good dancer. So it’s a way to celebrate them.”

What McGoey has seen in some of the boys she has photographed is a growing sense of self and of their relevance in the world through the art they are pursuing. Brendan, a 15-year-old dancer involved in the project, has become aware of the positive impact he could have on younger male dancers. For these boys to be role models for others who may be struggling is crucial.

McGoey’s #aboycantoo project celebrates boys for making brave choices, as well as the facets that are part of a well-rounded male, no matter how he identifies.

“I’m talking to moms and dads who are saying, ‘Finally, someone understands what we’re going through ... ’ ” — Kirsten McGoey

— KIRSTEN MCGOEY Photographer Kirsten McGoey of Whitby, Ont., began the #aboycantoo project as a ‘love story to my middle son,’ who gravitated toward colours and activities most boys shunned.

Kirsten McGoey says some of the boys she has photographed have shown a growing sense of self through the art they’re pursuing. ‘It’s a way to celebrate them,’ said the Canadian photographer.