Let’s start with an undeniable truth: farts are funny. Universally. Timelessly. Across continents and cultures, from playgrounds to boardrooms, the simple act of flatulence has brought about giggles, groans, and gasps. It is the great equalizer. And yet, somehow, we’ve turned it into a gendered experience.
Walk into any kindergarten classroom during snack time and you’ll find a boy proudly announcing his latest fart, followed by an eruption of laughter from his peers. The girls, on the other hand, roll their eyes, feign disgust, or worse, giggle in secret and pretend it never happened. That’s the script. One is celebrated, the other suppressed.
From that moment on, we start teaching our children that behavior is different, even something as primal as bodily functions, depending on their gender. “Boys will be boys,” we say, offering them a lifelong license to laugh, play, mess up, and try again. Girls, meanwhile, are nudged into poise, restraint, and self-monitoring. “Girls mature faster than boys,” we repeat as gospel, without ever questioning the cultural conditioning that makes it so.
But maturity is not innate. Maturity is taught. Or rather, imposed. And we impose it unevenly.
The Myth of Maturity
Let’s pause for a moment and deconstruct this so-called fact: that girls are more mature than boys. What we really mean is that we’ve expected more from girls, sooner. We tell them to cross their legs, be nice, smile more, say less. We burden them with emotional intelligence and responsibility years before we ask the same of boys. Then, we turn around and use that as proof of their “natural” maturity.
That’s not evolution. That’s social engineering.
And while we’re busy framing one gender as wild and humorous and the other as dignified and polite, we forget that both are just kids. Human beings. With emotions, with questions, and yes, with gas. When we fail to let children be silly, be loud, be human, we don’t just rob them of their freedom. We feed into a deeper narrative: one of competition instead of cooperation.
The Combative Language of Liberation
This narrative continues into adulthood, especially in the language we use around gender advocacy. Many campaigns for women’s rights, while born from necessary and righteous causes, unintentionally adopt a tone of battle. The slogans, the speeches, the hashtags often frame men as the problem, rather than inviting them to be part of the solution.
This is not to say that the issues aren’t real. They are. Women have been silenced, abused, underpaid, overlooked. The fight is just. The mission is noble.
But the method? Sometimes it feels like justice has been weaponized into a linguistic war.
When we speak of equality but frame it in terms of blame, we isolate potential allies. When every man is painted with the same brush, even the men who have listened, who have learned, who have stood shoulder to shoulder with women in their struggle, those men begin to withdraw. Not because they are fragile, but because no one wants to fight for a cause where they are made to feel unwelcome.
Farting Freely and Speaking Freely
It sounds silly, but here’s the metaphor: If we can’t even joke about something as universally human as flatulence without tripping over gender expectations, how can we expect to have deeper conversations about gender equality without collapsing into defensiveness?
We need to lighten the language. Not diminish the fight—but humanize it. Move from antagonism to empathy. Because at the end of the day, the goal isn’t to win a war. The goal is to build a world where no one has to fight for the right to exist in their full humanity.
We all need space to grow, to mess up, to laugh, and yes—to fart. Unapologetically.
A Final Puff of Thought
So here’s to embracing our collective ridiculousness. To rewriting the narratives we’ve inherited. To allowing girls to laugh and boys to cry. To raising humans, not roles. And to letting rip the idea that maturity, strength, or equality should come at the cost of authenticity.
Farts are funny. Let them remind us that under all our gender scripts, social armor, and polished personas, we are all just humans trying to breathe, laugh, and connect.
Even if it gets a little noisy along the way.
