Hello class, and welcome to Gender Studies 101. In today's lecture we will be focusing on the relationship of innate personality versus socially-ingrained traits with regards to...


No wait, wtf, this is a Dennis the Menace comic book from 1970. It doesn't even have Al Wiseman art, sheesh.




This is a story about how much Dennis's parents hate him and wish something, anything, was different about their little tow-headed ragamuffin in the belief that that single difference would make them hate him a little bit less.

so basically this is a normal Dennis the Menace story.


The passion in their marriage long since dead, Henry and Alice lull themselves to sleep with the thought that if their child had been born a girl, she would somehow be nicer and cuter, despite clearly just being the same kid with different clothing.


Alice's sweet dreams of girlhood quickly turn sour as she realizes she'd have to share her feminine accoutrements, which she previously had all to herself.


Meanwhile, Henry dreams about a scenario that would've played out exactly the same way in real life, except instead of a doll carriage he'd be fixing, I don't know, a soapbox derby car or something.


Well, she's got a point, handbags are very good as weapons, especially when you weight them with some good-sized rocks.


Henry believes, perhaps rightly, that Mr. Wilson would be more amenable to a little girl barging into his home any time of the night or day. BTW I just today looked at the Wikipedia page for Dennis the Menace and learned that the Wilsons have grown children of their own, which I have to tell you completely shook my worldview, as I'd always assumed they were childless. This knowledge completely lays waste to my literary dissertation in which I posit that in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" Edward Albee intended for the characters Nick and Honey to represent Henry and Alice Mitchell and the characters George and Martha were of course George and Martha Wilson, with Dennis as their imaginary, dead son.

I digress.


Ultimately, Henry's lack of imagination causes him to wind up dreaming of another scenario that would play out exactly the same way in reality. Or maybe it's his subconscious telling him that personality isn't determined by one's biological sex. Buuuuuut it's probably lack of imagination, I mean look at the guy.


Alice, on the other hand, imagines her daughter being a way bigger asshole than Dennis is. I mean yikes, Dennis teases and pranks Margaret but this is outright bullying.


I guess this is upsetting to Henry because he figures threatening a girl with physical punishment isn't as much fun as threatening a boy? Or he's more likely to let a girl go full Carnivore diet?


Meanwhile, Alice absolutely hates the idea of her daughter being self-confident and assertive.


OK, so, 2 things:
1) This awkwardness is 100% on Henry and his weird insecurities about taking his kid into a public place where he isn't the intended customer, and besides he could just as easily ask Mr. Wilson what HE'S doing there seeing as he's been bald since the Hoover administration; and
2) Who in the Jonbenet Ramsey takes a 5 year old to a beauty parlour? It's not like her hair looks any different when she leaves. Then again it's 1970, "Unisex" parlours won't be a thing for a couple more years.


"We hate you slightly less as a boy than we would if you were a girl" is not the positive affirmation most children would thrive on, but most children aren't Dennis Mitchell! Thankfully!!

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