Dr Phil Doesn't Want 'Confused' Boys to Play with Girls' Toys

[Butterfly]

Dr Phil Doesn't Want 'Confused' Boys to Play with Girls' Toys
The Bilerico Project
Filed by: Alex Blaze
February 10, 2011 2:00 PM


http://www.bilerico.com/2011/02/dr_phil_doesnt_want_confused_boys_to_play_with_gir.php


Dr. Phil's style works for what he does. No one wants to actually watch a real psychologist talk to a patient for hours, discussing how to best reach the patients' goals and with no concrete advice, no finger-wagging, and no scolding. He has to have a formula to fall back on, an understanding of what people should be doing that doesn't require him to actually know much about other people's lives, and it makes for better TV.

And, surprise surprise, in the lowest common denominator world of television entertainment, the easiest narrative of normality is straight, white, Christian, and middle-class.

So while he assures the mother that her child is just going through a phase, he makes sure to tell her that it's her "job" to shame her son into acting more macho. Send him a "direct message" that he's a boy, just in case he forgot (since people have a way of just forgetting their gender like that), and a direct message that being himself is unacceptable.