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Original poster

Enforced gender stereotyping at school

37 replies

PetraDelphiki · 29/11/2018 17:03

Hi all

Can you help me compose a letter to the (extremely competitive girls private) school please?

Dd (year 7) just came out of school in tears because her French teacher made her rip out her page of nouns and rewrite them because she had done pink for masculine? Apparently she has to use blue for masculine and pink for feminine....

Dd is upset about having to redo the work and I’m seething that the blue/pink thing is being enforced....and I did check they hadn’t been told blue/pink first so it wasn’t just she was ignoring what she had been told...they were just told to pick a colour for make/female...

OP posts:
Original poster
PetraDelphiki · 29/11/2018 18:05

How’s this for a first draft:

To: head of year
Subject: gender stereotypes

Dear (head of year)

Today DD came out of school in tears because her French teacher insisted she remove a page of nouns and rewrite them. The girls had been told to write the masculine nouns in a color and the feminine in a different colour. I have been very careful to ensure DD is not forced into choices made by modern gender stereotypes, so she started the masculine nouns in the first color she picked which happened to be pink. DD was told to remove this work and redo it with masculine in blue and feminine in pink.

If Mme had said in advance that these were the colours to be used and DD had ignored her I would absolutely expect DD to follow the instructions, however she tells me that they were just told to pick a colour for each.

I am horrified that a school that expects girls to become anything they want is also expected them to have internalized gender stereotypes to the extent that if they don’t follow them they are forced to redo the work. There is a very small step from “knowing” blue is for boys and pink is for girls to STEM is for boys and not for girls.

King regards

OP posts:
ajw88 · 29/11/2018 18:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

VickyEadie · 29/11/2018 17:54

Out of curiosity, did the teacher specify a colour for neutral?

Why would she? There is no neutral in French.

Carowiththegoodhair · 29/11/2018 17:54

I agree, but I would also caution picking battles if she is in Year 7. There will be other, more important stuff, come up later.

Use it as a teaching opportunity about sex stereotypes and get her to suck it up, rather than getting mum to fight all her little battles. Make her re-do it and give her a hot chocolate with squirty cream & marshmallows or something when she has.

ContessaHallelujahSparklehorse · 29/11/2018 17:52

WTF? That is bonkers. Please complain!

ajw88 · 29/11/2018 17:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
PetraDelphiki · 29/11/2018 17:50

Thank you!!!

OP posts:
HestiaParthenos · 29/11/2018 17:48

You are not overreacting at all!

I mean, I might have shrugged it away if the teacher had told her the blue/pink thing first.

But expecting a child to have internalised modern stereotypes and making her do the work again isn't just sexist, it is bullying.

I can't help you with the wording, but I would emphasise the fact that not telling a child in detail what they want her to do and then complaining that she doesn't read their minds is plain and simple bullying and you expect better from a school.

You can also mention the fact that you don't bring her up with modern stereotypes, so she couldn't have known she broke their unwritten stereotype rules.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 29/11/2018 17:45

They told the kids to choose colours for masculine feminine and write the words out in the colours

She did blue for feminine and pink for masculine and the treacher made her tear it up and do it again the other way around?

If that's the way it went and she didn't misunderstand then that is indeed completely shitty.

I think if you feel strongly then you need to ask about it.

FWIW I went to a selective high achieving girls school and the englosh teacher tore up my gcse coursework becasue I argued with him about something to do with the book we were reading, so sounds like not much has changed lol

Original poster
PetraDelphiki · 29/11/2018 17:22

OH and she is perfectly capable of being a Victorian and identifying pink as male and blue as female...

OP posts:
Original poster
PetraDelphiki · 29/11/2018 17:21

they weren’t asked to write them in those colours - they were told to choose a colour for male and write the words in their chosen colour. Only after she had chosen was she told that no, male is blue and female is pink. This is completely reinforcing the gender stereotypes we see every day...and if the teachers are so stuck in stereotypes then when will they start saying girls can’t do maths/science?

OP posts:
PurpleOva · 29/11/2018 17:10

Seriously?

I think you are massively over reacting. If they were asked to write them in colour codes of blue and pink, it would have been to make it easier to remember which are masculine and which are feminine. Blue and pink are the colours that represent these things.

Getting it the wrong way around would lead to the wrong connection being made.

Unless your daughter equates pink with masculine and blue with feminine?

This is for memorising the gender of words, not about reinforcing stereotypes in people.

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