Sexism embedded in my dc. Please help!

[m0therofdragons]

I'm so frustrated. I have 3 dds ages 7 and 10. The two 7 yos came out with "men and doctors and women are nurses!"

Dh and I both work full time. I work in a hospital (management) and talk about the amazing staff often, including male nurses and female doctors.

I don't understand where this attitude has come from as it's definitely not from home. Dh is the most supportive man. Dc also think it's odd that Dh does the clothes washing (a woman's job) and I cut the grass (man's job). Even my own dad vacuums the house so where are they getting this?

Dd3 wants to look pretty and marry a rich man.

How can I show them in an effective way that men and women are equal?

It's entrenched in the culture around us. I saw a big brand toy airport set. Pilot was male, hostesses female. This was last year. You have to pick up on it as much as you can to counter it.

I think I naively thought that with Dh and I as role models their understanding would be more balanced. The doctor in Miss Polly was always a lady in this house too when we sang nursery rhymes.

Culture. Look at adverts, books, etc

Just keep repeating your positive examples, point out stereotypes where you see them.

Dd current favourite is to point out the double standards of celebrities she sees on tv with regards to Botox, cosmetic surgery etc. The Apprentice was a good example with Alan Sugar looking "craggy" as you would expect someone of his age to and yet Karen and many of the participants looked smooth faced, puffy cheeked ... one of these things that once you start noticing you can't stop!

Ds1 came out with "men are doctors and women are nurses" aged 5. I was horrified . Turned out he didnt understand that they were different jobs (they both look after you when sick) and he thought "nurse" was just the name for a female doctor and that (male) doctors did nursing too.

Don't panic -- what the others said. Yes, depressingly engrained in culture, including in our experience in some early years care providers who should really know better, but just keep combating.

Alan Sugar looking "craggy" as you would expect someone of his age to and yet Karen and many of the participants looked smooth faced, puffy cheeked

Karen is a good 20 years younger than Alan Sugar!

ds once said if dd wanted she could be a police lady because she'd be in charge of making tea at the station while he drove the police car

he also told dh off when he was doing some diy for using "mummy's drill"

they have grown up to be nice people who seem not to be stuck with stereotyping as a hobby.

I suppose what I am saying is keep up the positive and the negative does eventually lose its power.

My dc have done this over the years- most recently ds3 told me very seriously that "daddies drive cars but not mummies", until I reminded him that his childminder, grandmother, auntie and just about every woman we know other than me drive bloody cars! It was weird.

Every day sexism. DW used to teach at a private school. Girls there (Sixth Form) thought she was ridiculous for objecting to policeMAN, fireMAN, postMAN and so on (instead of officer, fighter, worker, etc). But when you start adding it all up, the cumulative effect is huge.

There is a strong push for gender neutral educational resourcing for youngsters - and there's far better parity on TV than there used to be (toy adverts aside). BUT, there is also all the old stuff still floating around an spreading the gender-role mantra.

You’re not their only role models though.

The biggest impact for me was taking my dcs into my work - it became more concrete.

Plus you just keep talking to them about things like this - make them think. If mine said that, I’d ask them why they thought so and it would start a conversation.

Ds1 came out with "men are doctors and women are nurses" aged 5. I was horrified . Turned out he didnt understand that they were different jobs (they both look after you when sick) and he thought "nurse" was just the name for a female doctor and that (male) doctors did nursing too

My dm was shocked when I came out with a similar statement and I was a lot older than 5. I genuinely thought that men who worked in hospitals were called doctors and women who worked in hospitals were called nurses. I had no idea about what the different jobs entailed.