Guest post: Jobs for the boys? How early influences affect girls’ chances later in life.

[NicolaDMumsnet]

My daughter has just turned 3 and like many children of that age she is so inquisitive and full of ideas. One thing that currently seems to have grabbed her attention is the thought of growing up and what she might become. Some days she says “I want to be like you Mummy, working on your computer” – other days she wants to be a princess, yesterday she wanted to be a cat.

I have started to notice something that did make me sit up and think about which I wanted to share with other parents and get your reaction. Her recent favourite tv show is Paw Patrol and out of the 6 original ‘pup’ characters (we are only on series 2 so far!) 5 are boys and 1 is a girl. My daughter has chosen her favourite character to be ‘Skye’, the pink clad girl pup and I began to wonder, why that one. 

Is it because she as a girl relates to something in this female pup? Is it because of the colours she wears? I’ve always supported her to follow her own interests with the toys she plays with and the clothes she wears; but as parents, we regularly hear and see how stereotypes come into effect for both boys and girls with regard to the toys they play with, the clothes that they wear and the language they hear and read. How much of her preferences and interests have already at this young age been influenced by what she has seen around her?

The reason why this made me think twice was not because there is anything wrong with liking Skye from Paw Patrol but because I see the impact of gender stereotypes every day in the work that I do as Director of Programmes at an education charity called Education and Employers.

It may seem trivial but we know that stereotypes formed at these early ages can have a lifelong impact, limiting children’s potential in the long term.

In 2016 to mark International Women’s Day we published a simple film. 66 children aged 5 to 7 were asked to draw a picture of a firefighter, a surgeon and a fighter pilot. 61 drew men, five drew women. They were then asked if they would like to meet real-life versions of their drawing and the film captures their reaction. Mumsnet helped the video go viral with 100 million views and we have just launched a new film to show how gender stereotypes risk limiting the futures of girls all across the globe.

Having seen what 66 children drew we thought we would ask a few more. Indeed we asked 20,000 in 19 countries and what we found shocked us – gender stereotypes were set from a young age and were a global phenomenon!

Boys overwhelmingly aspire to take on roles in traditionally male-dominated sectors and professions and girls gravitated towards ‘nurturing’ or ‘caring’ roles. Nearly nine times the number of girls wanted to become teachers compared to boys and nearly double the number of boys wanted to become scientists compared to girls.

We looked at what these drawings showed us in terms of aspirations and influences and what we saw across the sample was that children’s aspirations appear to be shaped by gender-specific ideas about certain jobs. A future career seems a long way off for most primary-age children but we know the ideas that children form at an early age about their aspirations according to gender also appear to remain as children get older.

So what can we do about it?

Volunteers from the world of work can play a key role in providing children with role models and tackling stereotyping around gender. The aim is to show children the vast range of opportunities open to them and ensure they don’t start ruling out options for themselves at a young age. This is at the heart of Primary Futures  – developed by Education and Employers – which gives primary schools access to a vast range of volunteers from the world of work. We all want our children to dream big and not be held back by stereotyped limitations on their aspirations. So my ask today is this: can you help to inspire the future by sharing your story of what you do in your job and how it can be done by both boys and girls?

Register as a volunteer to visit a local school here

Twitter: @Edu_Employers
Website: https://www.educationandemployers.org/