Payal Desai saw a video on social media which stopped her in her tracks.

The reel was of a parent shaking her head with text overlaid that read: “When my sons watch me do my makeup and ask if they can do theirs next...”

The content creator and mum of two boys aged five and nine years old knew she had to film a response. She couldn’t disagree more.

“Whenever I have come across content that insinuates boys ‘can’t’ do or be a certain way, I am immediately curious as to why one holds such a stringent opinion,” she told HuffPost UK.

“After a decade and a half of teaching middle school, I worked with children who could be anything but generalised by gender.”

She added that anyone who spends long periods of time with boys “will see all the different sides of them, and realise how harmful assigning stereotypes and turning opinions into biology (like Niobe Way says) can be”.

“When we allow ourselves to align with what society deems ‘appropriate’ for boys, all we do is box them into expectations and confound their ability to be authentic,” she said.

Why parents should let boys smash stereotypes

For Desai, there are so many positives to allowing boys to be curious about things that have been traditionally considered “female interests”, like makeup.

“One: you get an opportunity to dismantle traditional gender norms and roles associated with those,” said the content creator in a........

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