September 28, 2015 - 07:23
When I was in elementary school, I used to spend my recesses sitting under the shade of an oak, tracing patterns in the bark mulch with a stick. I liked to watch the boys circle around a small rock and duel in Pokemon card games. I liked the divesity of the animals, I liked the special holographic cards, and I liked the strategizing of the game. I didn't have any Pokemon cards of my own, but neither did some of the boys who were playing. They would borrow someone's set for a round. I wanted to be a part of their game more than anything else on that playground, but I was never allowed to play, because I am a girl. The most I could do was watch. It was very clear to me from an early age that there were spaces in the world that girls were not welcome in. I would unconsciously internalize events such as the one described which excluded me because I am a girl, and I cultivated ideas of being inherently inferior to a boy. Throughout my life I have had to unlearn these things to give myself the best opportunities.
Play gets problmatic when kids stop letting others in. Some people say that kids are too young to see race or sex or any defining trait, but that's not true. Kids are incubators for a lot of adult prejudice, and when that gets brought to the playground, it can hurt someone else.