Boys and Girls

The Academy Award-winning "Boys and Girls" looks at gender roles, in this case on a farm. It's only about twenty-two minutes, but it manages to crisply lay out the expectations that society places on the genders. In this case, the daughter is adept at all sorts of things, but everyone views her as "just a girl". Without a doubt the roles assigned to the genders from an early age tend to stifle people's creativity; just look at how the mom has to spend all day in the kitchen, as sexually repressed as ever. This is what the patriarchy does to people.

Having watched this, I'd like to read Alice Munro's works. In the meantime, I recommend the short. It's long past time that we let children be who they want to be.