No more girls and boys; can our children go gender free? BBC 2 tonight

Last year I had to ask my Y9 top maths set if they wanted to do the intermediate maths challenge because we had spaces for about half the class. I asked for volunteers and a bunch of boys put their hands up. Even the girl who was the best mathematician in the class didn't volunteer. After putting down 10 boys' names I said I wasn't going to take any more boys and strong-armed some girls into doing it, but I had to tell them that I was putting their name down. They just wouldn't put themselves forward, it was very interesting.

She gets really pissed off at school when teachers ask for "4 strong boys" to help move a table

And then teachers ask for 4 girls to help tidy up and sharpen the pencils please...

Hear it so often.

Ha - can beat you there. We didn't have 'Home Economics' - it was 'Housecraft'

There were lots of structural differences at primary - girls' and boys' yards, boys did craft/woodwork, girls did needlework, boys helped with the dinner tables, girls helped with the little infants etc. but they expected everyone to do their very best in the other work whether they were a girl or boy. There were certainly no differences when you were lined up in front of the blackboard for the ruler on the back of the legs Goodness knows how they would have reacted if someone had worn a tiara in school.

My dd is a gymnast. Spends about 7 hours a week conditioning - strength exercises, chin ups, press ups etc, in addition to the learning flips bit.

She gets really pissed off at school when teachers ask for "4 strong boys" to help move a table, when she knows she is stronger than all of them. The teachers know it too, they've seen how strong she is. but it is so far ingrained to ask boys to do the physical tasks they never think to ask her, the strongest, most physical kid in the class.

I'm interested in Cheryl Sandberg's claim that girls who put their hands up in class are less likely to be chosen than boys, and so, by a certain age, girls learn to stop putting their hands up

There's an interesting discussion to be had over 'hands up'. Is it the best way to find out what someone knows? There are plenty of alternatives that are good classroom practice.

I watched with suspicion to me it was more of the trans agenda masked as an innocuous documentary about equality.
Whilst I support equality between the sexes this was about more than that- paving a pathway of thought that leads to an inlet for something else. A few observations-
The use of male/female toilet sharing mentioned, use of female spaces. Although yet to be fully covered.
The sentence that said get rid of language that differentiates between the sexes- change of language consistent with wants of transactivists.
Planting the seed male female are equally strong... paving the way for us both to compete in sport against each other.
I think it was dressed up as something positive but ultimately had a hidden agenda. I think it was propaganda, subtle but then propaganda is to be effective. It appeals to parents as something positive, ensuring equal opportunities but to do this we must share spaces, alter language use etc, so that parents are more likely to be accepting when this is pushed on us.

I found it an interesting programme and was pleased they made the point about male violence.

I'm interested in Cheryl Sandberg's claim that girls who put their hands up in class are less likely to be chosen than boys, and so, by a certain age, girls learn to stop putting their hands up. Since reading this, I try to observe whenever I'm in school, and would say there seems to be some truth in it. You can change use gender neutral toys, books and language till the cows come home, but I can't see them having much impact until girls stop being invisible.

It was depressing following twitter during that programme. So many negative comments.

It's the same for other groups - all the messages they get from society and the expectations. It's what Trump is about. All the messages given out and the reinforcing of difference, with the notion that 1 group is better than others.

I don't think using a female teacher would have made that much difference. In my, albeit limited experience, the gender stereotyping is so "normalised" that most don't even notice it.

I will put my hands up and admit that whilst it's something that I'm very aware of still on occasion go into stereotyping as that is my norm reference.

Do females in these crucial roles help or hinder girls

Depends on the teacher. I've seen teachers and TAs reinforce stereotypes and expectations and I've seen teachers and TAs challenge expectations. Regardless of their sex.

I was a sixties child. We had Home Economics at school in the early seventies for cake baking, ironing and typing, whereas boys had car mechanics and woodwork. But we were never dressed as pink princesses. We all expected to work not just parent. As kids we played out on our bikes/with trains, built dens, went fishing, played at being Batman/Superman/Avengers. As 6th formers, for good or bad, we despised girls who just wanted to get married and have babies. My very traditional mum would never have dressed us in pink for a girl or put a tiara on our heads. When did this start? Have we gone backwards?

The women teachers in DDs primary school are bright, forward thinking and don't appear to be as clueless as the male teacher in tonights programme.

It does make you wonder whether the programme would have been different if they had used a female teacher.

Do females in these crucial roles help or hinder girls?

As a parent of a child about to start school I found it very surprising how gender stereotyped the classroom was and that the teacher could get away with calling the girls 'love' and boys 'mate'. The little girl who thought she would only get 5 on the strength test then scored 10 summed a lot of it up for me. It also made me glad I have a son, I wish it didn't and it shouldn't be a battle for girls to grow up equal but it appears that girls are still considered the weaker sex. It absolutely fucking disgraceful.

The saving grace I guess is that most primary school teachers are women (ironic) so surely they don't run their classrooms in the atrocious way this teacher did

OTOH - what stereotypes and assumptions do they make about boys and girls?

I hear assumptions all the time in the classroom - and I see children conforming to a stereotype. I teach a lot less know but I still try to encourage everyone, to build their self esteem and to challenge stereotypes. It's so hard though with society as a whole.

Still, every bit helps.

I was stunned that the teacher hadn't realised the books in his classroom weren't gender neutral. He should know this stuff! He has been doing the girls in his classroom a massive diservice.

I was yelling at the tv. Blood pressure up.

I hope to God he is a shit teacher and that other teachers are as shocked.

The saving grace I guess is that most primary school teachers are women (ironic) so surely they don't run their classrooms in the atrocious way this teacher did.

I'm shaking my head in despair... he was genuinely shocked.

Examples of the changes he made- 1) putting 'slogans' around the classroom which gave positive affirmations around behaviours that applied to both boy and girl 2) exploring with the children what they thought of different careers, and introducing them to s male dancer/ female mechanic 3) having a 'test your strength' machine - results showed that boys abs girls are of equal strength at age 7, but what was v interesting us how the girls had already internalised that they were 'weak', and boys thought they would be 'the strongest'.
4) getting the teacher to stop calling the girls 'sweet pea/ love/ darling and to stop calling the boys 'fella/ mate/ guy

He can't get the same results by wading into individual parents' homes

It would be interesting to see what the home lives were like of children who 'broke the stereotype' - and who had very different results to the typical boy or girl.

There will be confident girls full of self esteem and boys who are quiet, lack confidence and under estimate themselves.

What it does reinforce to me as a parent how much of a lone voice I am with my child in addressing the issues raised in this programme.

I do challenge gender stereotypes but for the most part I feel that I'm hitting my head against a brick wall as they are constantly reinforced elsewhere. And even then I'm very aware of my own bias and it's influence.

However, I'll keep at it as something is working as even my dh is beginning to pick up in this now!

School heavily influences children though - and at this age they listen to teachers too.