to object to this reading book

[Itscurtainsforyou]

My 5 year old brought home a reading book about "man on the moon". It talked about the 12 MEN (not people, men) who have walked on the moon. I could let that one go as it was talking about past events and they were all men.

However at the end of the book it says something along the lines of "maybe men will walk on the moon again" - IABU to think that they should have used non-gender words (such as "people") or worded it differently? I felt the need to explain to my 5 year old that in the 1960-70s most astronauts were men and of course these days women were equally likely to walk on the moon/go into space.

Maybe I'm just easily wound up but this just seems like subtle sexism and there should be no place for it in schools.

Theydontknowweknowtheyknow

Ah. A linguist eh? 6 years at Uni level linguistics should help me here.

For a start you're mixing a singular noun (man)

No. Collective. Referring to a collection of entities but taking a singular form.I think this is where your confusion starts.

with a plural conjugation (breastfeed)

Simple present singular. I breastfeed. We breastfeed. They breastfeed. I assume stemming from your singular / plural / collective misunderstanding.

and a plural possessive (their)..

See above.

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motherinferior

Potatoes, you need to learn the difference between denotation and connotation, if you're going to give us these rather reductive and basic homilies on etymology.

I have an excellent understanding of the differences thank you.

I noted the interesting (but patronising and rude) solecism. Reductive and basic etymology seemed appropriate here.

I take it you belong to the 'never use a short word when a longer one will do' school of thought.

Thought you may enjoy the video.

Oh of course you've got many people telling you to get over it, it's just a book, but it's not an isolated thing is it, there's loads of minor stuff like this that unconsciously teaches girls that they are not as capable of certain stuff or that they have a certain role to fulfil. I think you just have to be proactive and teach your kids (boys and girls) yourself.

I'm with you op. I was peeved when someone at school told dd 'only women wear makeup'. It's these subtle messages from adults that constrict gender roles and can cause real suffering for people.

But the point is here that the 5yo this is aimed at do not understand the etymology of the word. They understand Man to equal men and boys. That is the problem.

So there's a very easy solution. Rather than airbrush history or edit books, tell children the difference. "'Man' can mean 'mankind' or people because of course women can do x / be y".

list of female astronauts. We had Kathryn Sullivan do an "inspirational talk" at my work place about a year ago. I think we were all doing the grown up equivalent of the look on the faces of the girls in the end of Math's video clip. She was absolutely bloody brilliant.

She also had some very interesting thoughts on what NASA got right with their first intake of women astronauts (4 in total in one intake into the space shuttle programme). One was that it was very important to have a group of them, not just for mutual support, but because then people had to see the differences between them as people and start to see them as individuals, not just "the generic token woman". They also had a shit hot press officer who took them on one side (the women's toilets, in fact) before their first press conference and said "the press will want to own you, and know everything about you, so I suggest that you come up with a group decision about where the line is between your public life as an astronaut and your private lives, and just politely decline to answer when they step over into your private life."

We and you are early sight words Mrs, so they would be expected to recognise those by sight.

No. Sight words are not taught any more - unless the school is not following the National Curriculum or their phonics teaching is poor. 'We' and 'you' are perfectly decodable, but those particular correspondences may not have been taught yet. The words should be broken down into phonemes and with particular attention to the tricky bits (only tricky because they haven't yet been covered).

So there's a very easy solution. Rather than airbrush history or edit books, tell children the difference. "'Man' can mean 'mankind' or people because of course women can do x / be y".

There is no airbrushing history here. The word being debated is at a the end of the book about what humans will do in the future.

people arguing for Man as neutral. The term the op pointed to was men at the end.
However at the end of the book it says something along the lines of "maybe men will walk on the moon again"

If the book was being gender neutral it would have said , "Man will walk on the moon again". I have just checked what the plural would be and it remains as Man. So anyone saying that they meant the human race are kidding themselves. The man is a general term which does not change.

Man used in a neural form are usually in collective singular possessive noun. I have not heard it used as men for plural.

I could be wrong. English is not my first language.

Has anyone noticed that anything that carries or looks after things is either called a she or mother.

Just googled and it seems that the learning by sight of the 'high frequency words' is recommended alongside phonics to allow children to access wider texts from an early age.

No, it isn't. Mixed method teaching is definitely out of the national curriculum. Doesn't mean lots of schools - like yours - aren't still doing it, unfortunately. Poor teaching.

When I was at school phonics were regarded as outdated and to represent poor teaching. 60s/70s. Then they came back in. MIL who taught from 1959 to 1999 said that phonics were essential but teaching methods had to be adjusted according to the individual needs if the child and most classes thrived best with a combination of methods.

20% of children fail to read using mixed methods, as opposed to around 2-3% using pure phonics. Thankfully, we've learned a lot more about brain research and how we read since your MIL last taught.

This curriculum has been statutory since September 2014. Some schools think they are teaching phonics correctly but are still teaching mixed methods. They're supposed to be using decodable schemes only - sight words are not necessary.

'Women' is easily decodable - in that word, 'o' and 'e' are alternative graphics for the 'i' sound. Most Year 1 children could confidently read that.

Graphemes, not graphics. Silly kindle.

"So 'men' is easily decodable, but 'women' is not, and the solution is to write early phonics reading books about men only hmm"

Yep. Just like Ms is impossible to pronounce while Mrs is easy peasy. And women''s last names are always harder to spell or more boring than men's, that's why women change them on marriage.................

I get worked up about this stuff and I will do until we're actually equal and an equal number of men and women are stay at home parents and there are an equal number of men and women picking their kids up, and an equal number working across all professions. Yeah that's the fucking utopian dream.

I replace and alternate with other phrases in songs. For example I'll sing 'fell off the bed, Daddy called the doctor and the doctor she said no more jumping on the bed!'

There's no 'the mummies on the bus go natter natter natter' or 'shh shh shh' here. We sing the version of the wheels on the bus about the tyre breaking down and the people and animals fixing it.

This comes to mind.

Carrados- I couldn't find that one- I was looking for it when I posted the superheroine one!

I think MIL used to have all her dc reading. She taught phonics when she wasn't supposed to because of her belief in kts efficacy, she also identified those who needed some extra, complementary help using other methods. Perhaps she reached the 2/3%. I know she had a very good reputation.

I thought your reply was a bit rude feenie, especially as I had made it clear I the first line that MIL thought phonics were essential and used them even against the prevailing doctrine during her career because she believed in doing what was right for the children.