Alicia Keys Makes Some Great Points About Gender Stereotypes After Her Son Is Afraid To Get A Manicure
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An Insightful Video
Navigating the modern world as a parent can be difficult for anyone, and it's helpful when celebrities are transparent about their parenting struggles. Raising a child can be scary and confusing, so it's important to reach out to your fellow parents. Keys took to Instagram over the weekend to pose a scenario to her followers: how should she handle her son Genesis' fear of judgment over his rainbow manicure? She recounted the story in a video:
"He's in the chair and he's like, 'I want [a] rainbow.' So he tells the lady that he wants rainbow colors on his nails. And she brings all of these colors and she paints each nail a different color. And after she painted his nails, he looked at me and he said, 'Mommy, I don't want this on my nails.'"
Throwing Off Stereotypes
When she asked him why not, his response was rooted in traditional gender dynamics.
"And I was like, 'Why? You were so sure. You were good.' And he was like, 'People are not gonna like it.' Can you believe this? Four years old. He's 4!"
Keys explained to him that if he wanted to get them he could, talking about how creative he is. She encouraged him "Stick with it. You chose it. You liked it. You do it. Who cares what anybody else says?!"
Opening Up A Discussion
Keys continued, explaining that the situation got her thinking about "how completely judged we are, all the time."
"The way I see it, there is masculine and there is feminine energies inside of us all, period. It gets concerning to me that we can't just explore these different sides of ourselves. These different energies that are within us.
Even for me, myself, I oftentimes express the masculine energy that's inside of me. And, all the time, if that happens, there are the judgments, and there's the stereotypes, and there are all the energies that come toward that.
"And for my boys, [it's] similar, if they want to express the feminine energy that's inside of them, there's all of these judgments, and all these rules, and stereotypes, and vibes. It's really frustrating to me. I'm actually really, really frustrated about it. I ask myself, 'Why is that? Why can't we just express the different energies that are inside us?' We should be able to explore and express [our masculine and feminine energies] however we want to."
Moving On From Judgement
Keys ended the video by asking people what they thought of this issue, opening up a discussion in the comment section. While a lot of people didn't agree with Keys' message, she had messages of support from plenty of people. Her husband and the father of her two sons, Swizz Beats, wrote "He’s a young King and he can explore and express his creativity at anytime ! We support it as his parents 🤲🏾."
What do you think? Is Keys right here?
