Last week, a so-called journalist (she’s always mostly done the puff pieces) really put her foot in it by mocking the fact that Britain’s Prince George is taking ballet classes and loving them. It’s just one little incident in an overall problem of the arts being heavily gendered — arts are “girl” things.

You see it in ballet, where there are few boys at all levels. You see it in music, where in most non-auditioned choirs (where everyone can just show up rather than there being a certain number of slots for each voice part) women outnumber the men by about two to one. You see it in theater, where they often have to gender flip any role that doesn’t have to be male for the plot to work because there just aren’t enough boys or men to fill the cast.

I direct a kindergarten choir, and I often have classes that are almost entirely boys. They love music and singing. By the time they get to fourth or fifth grade, gender expectations have kicked in, and there might be one boy left from the group that was all boys in kindergarten. It can happen even earlier than that, though. I have a friend whose son refused to participate in choir when he was in kindergarten because he had decided that choir was “a girl thing” — even though my choir that year had only one girl in it.

There are so many things wrong with all this. For one thing, it’s historically inaccurate. For a long time, women were forbidden to participate in the arts. Choirs were all-male, with the higher parts sung by boys whose voices hadn’t changed. Men or boys played the female roles in theater. For another, the attitude tends to take a trend toward misogyny, where the “girl” things are devalued. A boy who does “girl” things gets criticized because “girl” things are lesser. Likewise, a girl who does traditionally “girly” things is considered lesser than a “cool” girl who does “boy” things and therefore “is not like other girls.” There’s also homophobia in the mix, where the arts are considered “gay,” and therefore something boys need to avoid. Look at how things tend to be funded in schools and in communities, the resources put into sports (coded male) vs. the arts (coded female or gay).

This attitude does harm all around. There are the boys who never get to develop talents and interests. For the few who do stick it out, the situation can end up giving them false confidence. Because boys in the arts are so rare, they pretty much just have to show up to excel. The one guy in the student ballet company will get to be a star if he’s at all competent. A guy who auditions for a play (especially a musical) is probably going to get a part. A male singer (especially a tenor) is in high demand. Meanwhile, there are probably at least five or six extremely capable girls competing for each position. A girl has to be outstanding to go anywhere in the arts. A boy generally just has to participate and be moderately competent, and he’ll be treated like a star. Both the girls and the boys end up with an unrealistic view of their own abilities.

And there are so many benefits to the arts that boys miss out on. Studying music improves math skills. Theater helps develop empathy. Dance improves physical fitness. In fact, there’s a high school in this area that has started a dance for athletes class. It started when the football team’s kicker signed up for a dance class because he wanted to improve his flexibility and balance. The rest of the team mocked him for doing something so girly — until they saw how drastically his performance improved. So, more of them signed up. The coach noticed that those who took the dance class had fewer injuries because they had better balance, were more flexible, and were more agile, so he encouraged more players to take the dance class. It got to the point that the athletes were filling the dance classes, so they started one just for them. Really, they’ve found that arts education improves overall student performance. The arts offer a lifetime of benefits. You can play music and sing throughout your life. Getting comfortable on stage can translate to better performance in job interviews, meetings, and presentations. The balance and flexibility of dance can help prevent injuries. And yet all the funding tends to go to sports that most people can’t participate in for long.

So, stop mocking boys who want to dance, sing, act, paint, or do other things like that. Quit calling the arts “girly” or “gay,” and society would be a lot better off if we started valuing them as much as other things like sports. And Prince George, keep on enjoying ballet. That may even make you a better king someday. (And now I want to write a fantasy novel with a dancing prince — except in the medieval world, being able to dance was expected of nobility and royalty, so it wouldn’t be at all odd.)