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

It is anecdotally interesting that people working in STEM subjects, who are currently largely men as otherwise there wouldn't be so much research on the problems with getting women into science, are apparently convinced that the problem with women going into STEM subjects is that they are being excessively feminised by society from birth. This interpretation kind of reinforces the stereotype that you have to be more like the stereotype of a boy to do STEM subjects and that, therefore, wearing pink skirts and being interested in your appearance is totally off limits if you want to be taken seriously by the STEM world, even though the way you look shouldn't really have an impact on your scientific ability. I can see why women who actually like pink skirts might be made to feel unwelcome in a science lesson! And why women who can't fit into boiler suits and workgear designed for the male shape might find that slightly offputting when looking for careers in a traditionally male-dominated sector, as you may be able to stop wearing pink if you have to, but can't really cut off your breasts and ignore your hips.

I don't have time to read all that goes before my comment but I can say this....

Just google 'Pink Lego'.

Pink was a boys colour before the 1900s by the way!!

But right now, with a 20month old girl, Ian getting very annoyed with pink and girly stereotypes.

When you meet a little girl what is the first thing you say? "Hli, don't you look pretty?" Or is it "what's your favourite book?".

I find it annoying when I go to the shop and the boys have lovely fleece lined warm trousers with dogs on (because dogs are for boys) and the girls section has flimsy non-lined trousers or mostly dresses and tights.

WHY WHY WHY are dogs male clothing????? Why can't girls where dungarees with a dog on the front????
Why can't girls have fleece lined trousers???? Because girls don't play outside in the cold????? Because girls don't like kicking their feet through leaves in the autumn???

Because girls don't like YELLOW, or GREEN, or BLUE, or PURPLE, or BROWN, or ORANGE......!!!!!

Why?
Why? Why? Why?

I am sick of having to buy 'BOYS' clothes for my daughter because it has a DOG on it!!!

Pleeeeease M&S, Next etc....

Pleeeeease.... Do KIDS clothing.

ALL kids like:
BRIGHT COLOURS
ANIMALS
DINOSAURS
ASTRONAUGHTS AND ROCKETS
STARS
etc etc...

Please please please stop segregating these things!!!!!

Just make KIDS clothing.

Clothing for kids. All colours. All images. All sizes.

Let them choose what they like.

Yes and shoes in kid sizes with heels on and silly flimsy uncomfortable sandals, which I could get over if they were only the minority or in party wear styles, but loads are. Or if they were size 3 and above aimed at smaller teens. But aimed at under 12s is plain wrong.

Yes, it is annoying having to get girls' clothes in the boys' section. At least they actually fit, though, whereas as an adult, it's a bit harder! I used to buy men's jumpers in M&S as a teenager. Mind you, it's really annoying sometimes shopping for my dss - no, I don't necessarily want to buy a t-shirt with the latest movie advertised all over it, or the latest computer craze, or with footballs all over it, or with some comment on it about boys being rebels or having an attitude...

Actually, IceBeing, the place where girls are most likely to get the message that qualities that will later on work against them are highly desirable is school, where docile, well-behaved children earn the affection of teachers and those who are more rambunctious get frowns.

Girls absorb the message that quietness, waiting your turn, speaking when called upon, and many other behaviours that will lead to being sidelined in the real world are good and to be striven for at a time when their self image is being solidified. Boys are notoriously less 'ready' for school than girls at age four and five and six. Girls are considered 'ready', what this really means is they are exposed to the necessities of crowd control, and tend to co-operate with behaviour expectations to curry teachers' favour and not be treated as a boy or identified as a boy by the other girls.

Later in life, it is the boys' qualities as five year olds that result in promotion, leadership roles, and higher pay and respect in the workplace. It also means they are more likely to chance their arm at maths, and are not as afraid of being wrong.

MET, I disagree.

My DDs wore a lot of pink because they liked it. Purple too, and any other stuff they fancied. My bathroom is and always was nail polish central. They all liked their hair long and liked fashion. Second guessing a child's choice leads to all kinds of problems, including loss of self assurance.

The solution is to make the pink clothing as practical as the rest of the clothing.

BTW if you are looking for practical winter wear for girls, take a look at the LL Bean catalogue. Lands End is also good. Both are American.

Lands end have some good stuff for girls, this season. They've not completely abandoned pink and I wouldn't expect them to, but there's a much wider range of themes than just princesses and butterflies.

mathanxiety - you are missing the point that the adult buying the clothes doesn't like pink and when you have a 20 month old baby, you buy the clothes. You don't HAVE to like pink just because you are a girl, any more than you DO have to. I don't like pink and never did. I like purple and blue, though. There's tonnes of purple stuff in the girls' sections of shops. And as an adult, I have absolutely no problem these days finding clothes in all colours - clothes that fit my requirements of being both attractive and comfortable. Yes, there's a plethora of stuff I don't like the look of, but I just walk past that. On a very tight budget, though, I think it's harder to avoid things you don't personally like and then you might well be forced into uncomfortable, impractical pink stuff.

What mathanxiety has said in her last few posts echoes my opinions perfectly

The 20 month old baby doesn't care at all what colour she wears. It's all the same to her. She is going to poop in it and spill her food all over it after all.

The problem is we have identified items as second class or inferior based on their colour or design features such as lace, frills, floral motifs, etc. We have made the fundamental mistake of continuing to focus on externals when they are related to girls.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of the pink/girly clothing. We have just assigned a value to it in our own minds, and we have assigned a value to the clothing boys wear too. If we transmit to girls our notions that pink clothing is inferior, we are going against what girls might like to believe about themselves -- that they are perfectly fine the way they are, or even superior the way they are, and that pink or girly stuff is a mark of wonderfulness. There is a fine line to tread here with our opinions, and damage can be done by focusing too much on appearance, whether we want to dress girls for show or to dress girls in a way that we hope will be the opposite. If we put the clothing or appearance front and centre we will cause damage. I think we should treat clothing preferences of children old enough to choose as expressions of their own artistic sense, their aesthetic, and leave it at that, get on with all of our lives, and try not to assign too much significance to what is really only an external element.

I think it is a pity and actually dangerous to ask girls to make the choice to almost take the veil and refuse to engage with current culture in order to focus on academics. There is too much pressure on girls to forget who they are, to go against the tide. There are boys living in subcultures where appearing to make an effort in school means you must be 'gay' (used as a pejorative by peers) or somehow lacking in self respect as a boy. This subculture does immense damage to those boys, and I believe the corresponding damaging element to girls is deliberate suppressing of any instinct they may have to wear frilly/pink/sparkly 'feminised' clothing, and fear that it will have an adverse impact on their brains.

But mathanxiety, I just don't like pink. That's my aesthetic taste and I don't see why I should dress my baby in a colour I don't like. Why do I have to suppress MY tastes when my baby doesn't even care, so the offence to MY eye is therefore more important when my child is 20 months old?! I am really not interested in what other people think about pink, it's just a colour I don't like. I'm not keen on yellow, either. Also, I entirely understand the irritation that if my child were female and liked Astrosaurs, she would have to look in the boys' part of the shop for it. Just as you shouldn't suppress a natural urge to dress yourself in pink and read the Rainbow Fairies, you shouldn't have to suppress a desire to wear blue and read Astrosaurs or Beast Quest...

However, in terms of issues to confront in today's world, I would agree with you that it should be seen as a mere cosmetic one, as that diminishes it to the status it deserves.

ps there is often something wrong with the pink girls' clothing other than its pinkness - it is true what MET128 says that it tends to be flimsier and less practical than the boys' clothing, so it IS harder to track down cheap clothes for girls in mainstream stores that actually will keep them warm in winter when out tobogganing, or will withstand a walk on a windy, wet day.

I don't really see why prettiness should result in unpracticality. That's a massive and unnecessary design flaw. Yes, it's fun to wear impractical clothes sometimes, but not if they are the only clothes available - or the practical clothes are all ugly.

(or impracticality...)

That is so true about the practicality. Even the shoes. I see so many girls wearing Mary Janes for school and their feet are rolling inwards because the dainty narrow soles offer no stability.

Pink is just a colour. My style isn't particularly feminine, but I wear a fair bit of it. Today, I'm wearing practical skinny jeans, a loose fitting navy t-shirt and pink vivobarefoot shoes. It becomes problematic as a colour when almost everything is that olour in a shop's collection. Thankfully, a lot seem to be getting the message, now and even pretty little girl's clothes are back to sunny yellows, fresh greens and even some smart more muted colours. My boys get to choose from a whole spectrum of colours (including pink) so why shouldn't girls (and their parents).

Actually, this range in the new Next collection has some pretty good elements as far as practicality is concerned, while not compromising in femininity for girls who like that - has both pink and plenty of not pink. I've not looked to see how well they do for older girls, though. And, of course, it's a little pricier than George, F&F and so on.
www.next.co.uk/girls/younger-girls/playhouse

Yes, Next is quite pricey. The George collection probably fits the stereotype of cheap girls' clothing a bit better, and tbh, there isn't an awful lot I like in there:

<a class="break-all" href="http://direct.asda.com/Girls%27-Holiday-Shop/D22M4G1,default,sc.html?cm_sp=Desktop--grghome--George--scroll02--150715Link03girlsholshop#direct.asda.com/Girls%27-Holiday-Shop/D22M4G1,default,sc.html?cm_sp=Desktop--grghome--George--scroll02--150715Link03girlsholshop" rel="nofollow" target="blank">direct.asda.com/Girls%27-Holiday-Shop/D22M4G1,default,sc.html?cm_sp=Desktop--grghome--George--scroll02--150715Link03girlsholshop#direct.asda.com/Girls%27-Holiday-Shop/D22M4G1,default,sc.html?cm_sp=Desktop--grghome--George--scroll02-_-150715Link03girlsholshop

Two of my DDs are redheads and pink looked godawful on them, as far as I was concerned. But they loved pink and so I got them occasional pink clothes. Yellow looked nice on them so I got lots of yellow. The one colour nobody got was red. I bought a very good quality pink snowsuit for DD1 when she was a toddler, and put DS in it when he was a toddler a few years later. The next three DDs all wore it too.

I don't agree that it is hard to find decent quality clothes in pink. Stuff I bought in Dunnes Stores in Dublin, Walmart, Gap clearance section, Old Navy and TJMaxx in the US for DD1 stood the test of three younger sisters. Plus they wore a lot of handmedowns from friends and neighbours. There were many times I misidentified the DCs in photos because they all wore the same clothes one after another for the entire decade of the 90s and half of the 00s.

To keep warm when out in the snow I bought cheap black snowbibs in Walmart, worn over leggings or sweatpants of any colour, and a polo neck. Jeans were fine for cold days, or fleece leggings and sweatshirts. They wore vests and sporty shorts for summer, or skirts. I had a few dresses in tshirt fabric that washed and wore for years and years. DS wore the same sort of plain and simple clothing -- jeans, sweatpants, sweatshirts, tshirts, shorts. It's easy to buy for small children , up to about age 10 or so. I hardly ever asked anyone's opinion on clothing, just picked up whatever I thought would suit. They were free to pick out whatever they wanted to wear daily after age two or so. I rotated seasonal clothing into and out of storage so they were never tempted to wear a tshirt in December. Once they started doing babysitting, pet sitting and odd jobs, they bought their own clothes, not all of which would have been my choice but heyho.

They wore trainers to school thanks to sensible school uniform policy that put an end to formal footwear requirements.

I didn't actually say it was hard to find decent quality clothes in pink. I said it was harder to find decent quality cheap girls' clothes than it is to find decent quality cheap boys' clothes and this is largely because the inherent design of the boys' clothes is more practical. So I understand the viewpoint of those who get irritated when walking around the local shops and supermarkets that they appear to be stuffed full of pink tat for girls - because, actually, a lot of them are. You don't have to buy it if you have the time, money and inclination to shop elsewhere, but not everybody has the time, money or inclination, hence the number of children turning up at school (let alone anywhere else) in impractical footwear, particularly the girls, as impractical footwear is available in huge and cheap quantities for girls. When it gets to the point that girls don't run around as much as boys because they aren't dressed for it, it is getting a little bit silly, imo.

Ironically, my ds1 is currently wearing a t-shirt in the sort of dark dusky pink that I don't mind - looks good in contrast with his blue shorts. Would look good on a girl, too.

By 'decent quality' I had practicality in mind -- fuss free, ease of washing and drying, ease of putting on and taking off, as well as knowing the clothes would be worn because they appealed to the DDs for whatever reason. The only clothes imo that are worthless are those that nobody will wear. I tried not to buy items that ended up keeping the drawers warm in winter.

That all sounds eminently sensible, mathanxiety. I don't tell my children what to wear, either, now they are old enough to express their own opinions, I just check the labels to make sure they aren't dry clean only (and ignore anything that says "handwash" as it's generally OK in the washing machine...).

As a child, however, I found trying on nail polish boring, trying out make up boring, and having my hair in any style that made if difficult to go out on a windy day, irritating. This was nothing whatsoever to do with my mother or her opinions, or my father and his opinions, or rebelling against society and its opinions, or wanting to be like a boy: it was just the way I am. I think I'm attractive with minimal effort () and am simply not as interested as any of my friends were in experimenting with alternative looks. One of my dbs, on the other hand, got endless fascination from playing about with different hairstyles and went through several different style incarnations. There is absolutely no need, in my opinion, to go around celebrating what a mark of wonderfulness make up and nail polish are, or how female pinkness may even be superior to maleness... It's all just stuff that some people do and are interested in and other people don't do, because they really aren't. It isn't anything special in my mind, or necessary.

I recognise that a lot of people find it fun, though.

My mother was (and still is) a lentil weaving hippie who considered the Beatles to be the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and shunned most of the music and fashion that followed them. She went to a very strict girls' convent boarding school in Ireland back in the days of wartime, where she learned many important life skills including getting by on one tiny pat of butter per week and knitting her own socks. She only used beigey-pink nail polish once in a blue moon (one bottle did her fifteen years) and was a great believer in soap and water and nothing more for the face.

I never bothered much with nail polish. I don't recall it being a thing amongst my friends back in the late 70s or early 80s in Ireland, though there was a sort of opalescent (if that's a word) polish that swept my school that I liked. I got a terrible haircut at about age 12 -- I was allowed to go to the hair place on my own and get it done, and after that I was pretty much finished with hairdressers. I was a teen in the heyday of punk and if that style didn't appeal there really wasn't much else to experiment with without looking like a cooler version of one's mother.

My DDs grew up in different times I suppose, but I know I have consciously tried to let them follow their own interests as long as they weren't interested in regularly getting drunk in the park by the canal with the local Lads. They have a cousin whose parents were very vocally opposed to nail polish and all thing frilly who rebelled in a major and very self-destructive way in her teen years. The rigidity of her parents extended to more than just nail polish of course -- it was a very 'my way or the highway' sort of home. I can't help thinking a little realism in choosing battles would have been a better way to go in my niece's case.