Sex ed - shaving legs in year 5

[Candycoco]

Have posted in education but posting here for traffic.

Dd came home from school today having had sex ed at school for the past 2 days.

I've always been very open with her and have answered questions as they've come up, so no big revelations this week.

However, she told me today that the boys were taught how to shave by male teacher, and girls were taught how to shave their legs. This just doesn't sit right with me. I know 99% of women do shave their legs and it's something I've already talked to dd about as she asked me last year about it and I told her she has to wait til end of year 6 before she starts secondary to do it.

I just feel it's a bit presumptuous and suggests all girls should. Maybe I'm being bit uptight about it but I don't like the message it sends. Is this normal to teach this as park of sex ed?

Thanks

I think I'd close my eyes, so that I could hear what he was saying without having to look at him!

But somehow I think that image wouldn't get out of my head... I would be unable to stop wondering what possessed him...

So there you go - there's a time and a place for everything! A tight pink top and an inch of make up might not be the best look for an interview or TV lecture... particularly not if you are a man!

I can see why others might like him, but for me even personality being more important than appearance doesn't breech the gulf between my taste and Brian cox.
Although we should now await the onslaught of criticism for showing our society inflicted true female colours in even discussing Brian Cox removing his top. Although if we wanted to make snide personal comments about his appearance or life choices that would probably be ok

If he went on TV wearing sandals with socks, with sweat-marks under his armpits and with a thick, shaggy beard, I might also have to close my eyes while listening to him. We are ALL affected by what we see. If I want to take in content, I like it to be delivered by something fairly neutral-looking.

And no, I don't find him attractive. I don't find him repellent, either. So I guess he achieves the relatively neutral ideal!

Rather than Brian Blessed!

Well, any message of Brian Blessed's would certainly be loud and clear.

So nice of the pair of you to insinuate that it is my fault (as a feckless working scientist no doubt rather than attentive SAHM) that my daughter has absorbed a little of society's sexism.

I don't know where exactly my DD picked up her gender biases but her books and cbeebies are likely candidates, given the rampant sexism in both.

But do go ahead and continue to think she is some sort of outlier whose belief in her own inferiority is somehow caused by the feminism of both her parents.

I have been slow to realise it but I have totally run out of fucks to give what either of you think on the topic.

Get educated yourselves if you can be arsed...which obviously you can't.

ice if you want to start telling people they are sending out the wrong messages and find fault with their opinions because they are opposing to your own, you can't be offended on your own behalf because they explain why. You are welcome to the opinion my dd is negatively influenced and to point out you think its because I don't subscribe to your brand of feminism. But it's only logical for others to turn that back and say they believe your brand of feminism is why. Especially when you introduced your child as evidence your thoughts were correct. Rather I think it is you who needs educating, particularly given your propensity for insinuating others principles aren't acceptable and flouncing when you get the same in return.
However I found your comment about sahm v amusing, I'm a ft single parent, as I've always been so perhaps my ability to raise a child alone implies at the root of it my feminist principles are somewhat stronger? ( joke by the way incase anyone thinks I'm implying single or couple is vaguely relevant )

'all a woman has to do, apparently, is shave her legs and she's advertising that she's gagging for it...'

Indeed, Rabbit -- I think this may be a corollary of the myth that women are always up for it, and if they don't look as if they are up for it, then they are frowsty old spinsters and we all know what they need

It is all part of the male notion that women's lives revolve around men.

IceBeing - when you resort to "fucks," the one thing I do know is that you haven't run out of them! You have a remarkably unscientific approach in your views, conclusions and reactions to other hypotheses for a working scientist. But hey, don't stay calm, just say "fuck" to anyone who disagrees with you...

rabbit I work in the area (at least part time) of gender inequality in STEM. I have given talks on the topic to educated audiences actually looking for solutions. There is a ton of evidence that has gone into the conclusions I personally draw (and that many people working in the area also draw).

I have plenty of fucks to give on the actual issue, and how to fix them. What I do not have any fucks left for is persuading people like you that don't want to hear the facts, how wrong they are. Whatever - I would rather talk to people who are interested in the facts and wanting to fix things.

lurked you don't know what my brand of feminism is, nor do you have any idea to what level I engage with my daughter on such topics.

To draw a conclusion on the basis of knowing neither of those things is just plain stupid. But at least you demonstrated why precisely there is no point talking to you further on the issue.

That to me is something your mother should talk to you about not the school!
I was brought up to it being a big deal to shave your legs and I was told I wasn't aloud to shave them till I was at least 14/15.

I don't think it comes under sex ed at all

Nobody is objecting to situations where there are inequalities. And you are entitled to use whatever reasonable evidence you like to draw conclusions as to either the cause or the solutions. As am I or anyone else. But the fact is you've stated yourself your dd was aware of the possible effects of her gender on her future potential. Yet the evidence of the majority of other children does not show any awareness of future limitations. And the only difference you mentioned is your dd has been exposed to feminist principles/ media that the rest in all likelihood haven't. That's pretty good opposing evidence.
You'll also be aware that if you set out to prove a fixed hypothesis, test only for that predicted result with no control group, chances are you'll draw conclusions from the results that aren't necessarily correct. And even if dozens of other people replicate that exact experiment with no control group and therefore come to the same conclusion, it doesn't make it correct or fact. And if you want to make scathing remarks about 'educated people' and 'sahm' I would politely suggest you review the wisdom, for somebody with a career in science, in conducting an experiment on your personal beliefs without any reference to the control group.

@WorraLiberty

That is exactly what I did. I wasn't aloud to do my armpits/legs until year 7 and I was so frightened I'd cut myself. My self confidence hit rock bottom and some days when it was hot and in a short school polo shirt, I'd pull sickies so no one had to "possibly" see my arms or legs.

@NeedAScarfForMyGiraffe
I'm of the same opinion :)

I hate that society dictates what beauty looks like to young girls. It's like they're brainwashed into thinking it's something they have to do. No girl has to shave OR remove hair. It serves NO purpose. I would kick up a huge fuss with the school. I also think year 6 is WAY to young to shave....again...what purpose does it serve? Apart from teaching them that what other people think about you is more important than how you feel about yourself.

In DD's school the girls would not be taught to shave their legs, but they would be taught to construct a well reasoned argument about why it wasn't important or necessary.

I would be going seven kinds of flying bat shit crazy on that school, she is FIVE FFS, teaching babies how to shave their legs is not sex education, young children only need biological basics teaching my DDs (I have 3) how to shave, put on makeup, dress , etc that is my job and I would never want some school teacher doing that, & my sons father taught him how to shave , when he actually had something that needed shaving off, speak up once you calm down, who ever is in charge there is definitely overstepping their bounds.

I remember while the boys went off and learned about men's health, we were taught how to do our makeup. Not very well either, though I was and am a firm goth so I might be biased when it comes to the use of blusher ;)

With my current experience of primary school proms, I'd argue at that age the priority you attach is more of an influence than the availability of information on 'beautifying'. As an example, the girls in dds class have split into several groups. One lot have delighted in the preparation, and been keen to devote time and effort to buying the right dress, the manicure etc. Another lot would rather be doing something else but felt the result was worth the effort. The last group want the dress, the hairstyle etc but not enough to devote their time and efforts to it. I'm leaving out the kids that I suspect have been coerced into following any group by parents, eg you will gI to the hairdressers. And while in the other groups there are good reasons to suspect parental or peer pressure/ influence have played a part, from the members of each group it's far from clear cut that they are simply copying others priorities.

CallieG - wow! What a precocious 5-year old, to have made it to year 5 of primary school, already!

IceBeing - so you have put your name to a published research paper on the effects of TV advertising, books and CBeebies on 3-year olds' attitudes to the capabilities of women, have you?... Could you post a link? And I hope in that research that you didn't ask the leading questions that you have posed on this site, such as, "What do you think would be an appropriate career for a girl?"...

And IceBeing, it's not that I doubt you that TV, books, gender-specific toys and people asking you whether or not you are a Tomboy can have an effect on your perceptions, as I think that they can. It's just that your experience with your dd appears to me to be slightly extraordinary, given that she exhibited such a strong awareness of gender differences and identity at such a young age apparently just from being asked if she was a Tomboy a few times, having grown up in a household with no TV and, presumably, mainly reading books and playing with toys that you have selected for her. It is also in any event not my experience of CBeebies that there is tonnes of stuff on there about girls worrying about their appearance and boys fixing stuff. It is also an advertising-free channel, so no adverts for girls' lego versus boys' lego, or girls liking jewellery making and boys liking guns etc. To claim that out-and-out sexism is being flaunted quite so obviously in front of very young children in their reading matter and on the BBC (ie that girls almost invariably have very limited, ultra-feminine roles and boys always have active, practical roles) just doesn't correspond with my personal experience - and I'm the one out of the two of us who actually possesses and watches a television, whereas your experience appears to be anecdote, given that you don't watch it.

There are already quite a lot of messages out there telling girls that it's OK to like construction toys and to work in engineering, plenty of unisex toys for little children, and plenty of girls in the streets and playgrounds dressed in blue trousers and brown tops rather than pink skirts, having their hair short, and winning running races against the boys. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that a child at the age of 3 should pick up the message that girls can't be engineers or win races. It is also an exceptionally good thing that these alternative messages are out there and that people like you are thinking about it and querying stereotypes. It's just that if you push too hard and talk as though you don't believe there has been any progress since the 1970s, or don't believe that any female could independently choose to wear pink and make jewellery unless she has been brainwashed, you will find people reacting to this negatively, possibly even going to the opposite extreme just to annoy you, because it doesn't chime with the reality that they are experiencing. The argument needs to move on and become more subtle to capture hearts and minds. So aggressively trying to dismiss people for querying whether you are talking in hyperboles is a bit of an own goal, really.