Getting a tiny bit feminist on the teacher's ass!

[SolidGoldBrass]

I didn't raise my voice. I didn't unshave my legs or anything.
It just so happened that DS and I bumped into his class teacher at the playground this afternoon and we had a pleasant chat; the teacher turns out to have DC of her own, of a similar age to DS. She mentioned something about girls being very different to boys. I very very gently said that this was in fact rubbish and suggested she read Delusions of Gender, and added that I thought every teacher should read it as a lot of the stuff about gender difference you hear these days was not only wrong but dangerous...

I'm going to be 'one of THOSE mothers' forever, aren't I?

Yes, yes you are.

But I will be too, so here's to us!

Why, yes you are.
I haven't read the book, nor am I a teacher. I do think that boys and girls are very different in terms of behavior, socializing, learning, playing...

i agree with you
how did she respond?

But quite often, girls are different to boys. When you work in a classroom, differences between the genders does tend to stand out.

Of course there are many many exceptions, but the majority of boys and girls being different doesn't have to be seen as a bad thing.

Rip and Cloud the way society treats boys and girls and the expectations placed on them are different, how do you know that those differences are innate and not just socialised?

I haven't read the book. I am a mum to both sexes, and an experienced teacher in a mixed school. Girls are different to boys. No book will convince me otherwise, I prefer to judge on actual human experience.

It may be nurture rather than nature, but they are still very different.

Because it happens so often in so many similar ways in children from vastly different parents and from such a young age.

I would have thought a teacher with far more expertise in observing a lot of children would be able to make an informed opinion with the need to read any book..

Males and females ARE different, without social conditioning or any other intervening factor.

cloud it is a bad thing indeed if they are only different because people have driven them to be different...if they were different naturally that would be fine...but different due to societal pressure to conform to the ideals of gentleman like and ladylike behaviour sucks ass.

Teachers should realise that it is their job to negate the shit that pours in from the outside world telling kids what they should be like. It is damaging and they should play an active role in encouraging kids to find out how they really are not what society tells them they should be.

My post was based solely on my experiences. I've met children from six different countries.
I would say that similar differences are present in all cases despite societal expectations.

I think a teacher who has worked with many , many boys and girls over the years will be perfectly knowledgable and qualified over the differences and similarities between the genders.

Actually she didn't go 'Oh shut up you nutter' or anything, she said it sounded interesting. And I didn't want to rant too much, so I spared her my other usual comment that I offer people who have one DS and one DD and therefore insist that boys and girls just are different - which is that people who have more than one child of either gender often find that their children are different...

squeaky prove it!

Show me a society in which children of both genders are treated exactly the same and in which they still display broadly different characteristics?

Oh there are none are there? So you know that the differences in primary school children are due to nature not nurture how?

And I would expect a teacher to teach my child according to the curriculum, and nothing more.

That's certainly the case for me, SGB. My younger daughter is rambunctious and stubborn and physically foolhardy and loud. Basically, all the things which, should she have been a boy, would have made me think "gosh, boys really are different, aren't they?".

I have more than one child of each gender. The boys are more different to the girls.

So you only have one ds and this somehow gives you a much better insight to anyone else?

rip you have been to six different countries and there were massive differences in the societal pressures? Did this include the long lost land of the matriarchy? Or somewhere where the majority of hard labour is done by women? Or it is the men that are expected to dress up prettily to attract the women?

Where on the actual globe are these different countries?

One of the things that has really shocked me about having two daughters (after having 2 sons) is how "girly" the girls are, despite us oh-so-carefully parenting them the same way we 'parented' their older brothers. To us, it definitely seems that gender differences are innate. The girls (twins) have had a lot of hand-me-down toys and indeed clothes from their big brothers (also twins). I really don't think we've treated them any differently. And yet, the girls are so different from their big brothers. It's quite hard for my feminist self to handle, actually!

Rip: there is absolutely not one single culture in existence that doesn't expect different things from male and female children and, to an extent, punish and pressurize the substantial minority of children who don't fit gender stereotypes.

A teacher that can see the differences is not telling children what they should be like.

It is perfectly possible to respond to a child as a person rather than as a gender, while at the same time still being able to recognise that there is a strong tendency towards stereotypes.

I actually think teachers work better when they do that, instead of trying to treat everyone the same.

How daft do you have to be to think:

I have a boy and a girl and they are different.

Therefore the difference must be due to gender!

Nope. That's not how it works. Less than 5% of your genetic code has anything at all to do with gender. That leaves the other 95% perfectly capable of making differences in personality traits...

Some people are quieter, some are more physically active, some are vainer, some are more aggressive, etc etc etc. But kids don't grow up in a vaccuum, and when they are surrounded by messages telling them that this is what boys are and this is what girls are, they either conform (often if they have the personality traits considered more appropriate to their sex) or they rebel (if they have the personality traits considered more appropriate to the opposite sex) - and sometimes they suffer for doing so.

DD is a boy, according to all the cliches. Physical, likes cars and trucks, hates sitting still. Why do we shove children into little boxes? Let them be.

I think this woman being a teacher is a bit of a red herring. It's not like she's making the boys do woodwork an the girls do knitting.

If she notices differences between her students, and this helps her to communicate effectively with them then this is good. Conversely, if she sees differences where there are none, and treats one gender worse than the other, this is bad.

There's nothing so far to suggest that this view has in anyway affected her teaching.