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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

teaching our daughters to be feminine

92 replies

Tewkespeggy · 22/09/2011 23:39

I have a bit of an issue with the school on 2 feminine points

1 the boys outnumber the girls two to one. But the school insists on sitting two girls and four boys on each table. ALWAYS. i just feel that we are teaching our girls to defer to boys because they are always outnumbered. why cant they have an all girl table once in a while. shouldnt we also be teaching our girls to get along with each other?

2 New school rules say that from yr4 all girls MUST wear a tie. I am SO against it becuase it just isnt feminine. I can take you to the square mile and show you 1000's of men wearing ties and how many women? Feeling i should boycot the tie, but feel torn because I let her wear trousers... which are practical in the winter. but what practical purpose do ties on a 8yr old girl achieve?

Canvassing opinions please

OP posts:
LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/09/2011 08:47

I'm just confused ... how come there are four boys for every two girls at your school? That's an odd ratio isn't it?

I don't think ties are kind for children - a pain to put on and bad memories of how easily grabbable they were in playground games.

I think it's a pity to teach your DD to be 'feminine' though - let her enjoy being a child and decide what she wants!

Blackduck · 23/09/2011 09:01

Ties in juniors are just plain silly (for either sex...).
Ratio - well may be I should be worried that my son's masculinity will be threatened as in his year in school the ratio is exactly opposite (2 grils to every boy...). - it happens LRD - just one of those odd quirks of school intake and a particular birth year....
I am - I don't want my son to learn to masculinity, any more than girls learning femininity......and them to just be

SybilBeddows · 23/09/2011 09:02

LRD - my dd is in a class of 14 boys and 2 girls. There used to be 3 girls but one left because of the lack of girls.
The year below her has around 4 boys and 10 girls. These things happen.

BecauseImWorthIt · 23/09/2011 09:03

You suffer? I think you need to get out a bit more, Bonsoir

ThePosieParker · 23/09/2011 09:05

When I was at school we all had exactly the same uniform except girls also could choose a skirt. I like this.

PrideOfChanur · 23/09/2011 09:07

I feel the same about having to dress more "feminine" than my comfort level,Bonsoir. Smile Uniform was ok because it was fairly plain.
I think people should be free to be themselves.

Himalaya · 23/09/2011 09:12

Becauseimworthit - do you really think people can/should just see all items of clothing as gender neutral? I mean could a school say 'our uniform for all is a skirt and boys will just have to get over the fact that they feel distinctly odd wearing it' ?

kat2504 · 23/09/2011 09:14

Ties serve no practical purpose on an 8 year old boy either. Lots of schools have ties for both boys and girls though so unfortunately that is the uniform and you will have to get over it/ask the school to change it to a nice comfy polo uniform. Ties are impractical on children but I couldn't care less about the femininity issue as I don't want to force a stereotype on small children. Boycotting an item of uniform will just mark you out as being a PITA parent and mark your daughter out as different in her class, which I'm sure she won't thank you for.

A boy/girl seating plan in common practice in schools - generally for behaviour management purposes. If they had even numbers in that class they would have three of each on that table. I presume they are trying to avoid an "all boy" table. Or perhaps they have actually grouped the children according to something useful like ability?

Teachers are not really considering some "femininity" rubbish when they decide how best to arrange their classroom for learning. Generally the girls all play together at break and have ample opportunity to learn to get along together.

TrillianAstra · 23/09/2011 09:18

Saying that one a 4-boy 2-girl table the girls will always defer to the boys because they are outnumbered - does that mean you think that all boys always agree with each other and all girls always agree with each other?

As individuals they all have different thought and ideas and opinions. If there is a decision to be made when they are working in a group there is no reason why the split should be along gender lines.

kat2504 · 23/09/2011 09:20

Perhaps the girl will defer to the boys if that is the sort of thing her mother is teaching her trillian and all the more reason to treat her as an individual and not just a girl at school!

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/09/2011 09:29

Thanks for explaining about the ratios. Blush

OP, I wonder if it's not so much femininity at issue, but resisting masculinity? That's just as much of a construct and frankly, it is crap if stereotypically masculine clothes are being presented as more appropriate in a formal/educational context, isn't it? What sort of message does that send?

CalatalieSisters · 23/09/2011 09:32

Perhaps the 2-4 ratio on tables feels bad largely because it replicates the awful token-women set-up that we usually get on TV panels -- comedy shows, discussion, etc, where one woman is sat with three men and therefore cornered into representing her gender as a deviation from the default gender. Those really are awful, and we certainly need many more panels with majority women in.

But within the school itself, I don't imagine it is likely to be damaging. There will be all-girl settings too (in playground etc there is loads of gathering around gender), and the 2-4 thing at least minimises the chances of a girl being the only girl at a table.

Seating arrangements are probably quite a headache for teachers and the 2-4 thing is a way of simplifying matters.

The tie thing: not a problem I think. Certainly less of a prob than the pressure to look "feminine"

BecauseImWorthIt · 23/09/2011 09:32

Himalaya - ideally, yes. However, items like skirts and dresses are not worn by men (unless you're talking about a kilt), so they are imbued with feminine associations.

But in the case of a tie, it is very common for school uniforms to feature a tie for boys and girls, so why not see this as gender-neutral?

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/09/2011 09:39

BIWI - well, it's not gender-neutral is it? As the OP says, few grown women choose to wear ties. In fact, when they do IME it is either part of a uniform like the bow ties described or as 'sexy secretary' in magazines. It's not part of serious workwear - that is reserved for men.

StewieGriffinsMom · 23/09/2011 09:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BecauseImWorthIt · 23/09/2011 09:44

I didn't say it was gender-neutral, I said why not choose to see it as such?

Especially in the school environment.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/09/2011 09:45

I think that's a heavy burden for a child, BIWI. And is it fair to say to a child 'oh, see it as gender neutral' when that child will realize later on it was not so?

BecauseImWorthIt · 23/09/2011 09:46

But it's not the child who has the problem here, it is? It is her mother.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 23/09/2011 09:48

It actually really annoys me how often I've been told that such-and-such has been chosen and is no longer deemed masculine, and I should just not object. When someone starts saying skirts are no longer masculine and boys should just put up with wearing them as normal school uniform, I might feel more inclined to see ties the same way.

To me, it comes across as if we're saying girls can be treated like boys until they're adults, at which point they will realize that what was 'unisex' for a child is now 'masculine' for adults.

kat2504 · 23/09/2011 09:51

I don't really see schoolgirls in ties as having masculinity forced upon them. It isn't something that is going to harm you for life.

Really I don't like ties in any school uniform. As a teacher they are the bane of my life and getting kids to put them on properly and not wear comedy ties is irritating in the extreme.

In older girls having to wear a tie at least forces them to do up the buttons on their shirts and stops them revealing more "femininity" than would be appropriate at school!

BecauseImWorthIt · 23/09/2011 09:51

But the OP didn't say any of that, LRD!

School uniform has forever and a day included ties for girls. Which, in my book, makes them gender-neutral for children.

I have a bigger issue, to be honest, with schools insisting that girls wear skirts/refusing to let them wear trousers.

Fennel · 23/09/2011 09:53

For me the important thing is that teachers and parents encourage the girls not to defer to the boys. I didn't defer to boys at my co-ed school (and I was vastly outnumbered by them in 6th form), and my dds similarly are not remotely deferential to the boys in their classes or groups.

I'm not keen on uniforms at all but agree if boys have to wear ties then it's fair for the girls to as well. Most adult men I know don't actually wear ties to work either.

PrideOfChanur · 23/09/2011 09:56

Though very few grown women choose to wear checked gingham dresses,complete with collars buttons down the front etc either.If you are going for non gender specific,do you say everyone wears trousers?

(disclaimer:my answer to that is "no")

I'm struggling with the difference between assuming male dress as the default,and the feeling that it shouldn't matter,and by making an issue of it you are attaching more importance to the idea of gender differentiated clothing as the norm.Ties may not be gender neutral in adult life,but I think you could argue that in a school uniform context they are.

In the early days of girls wearing ties would this have been viewed as a positive thing - girls being able to do things previously reserved for boys? In the same way that at a time when the education given to boys and girls was very different the right to follow the same curriculum as the boys was a good thing for girls.
Possibly confusing two trains of thought here...

CalatalieSisters · 23/09/2011 09:58

SGR, wouldn't getting rid of uniforms expose girls much furhter to the uniform of "femininity" -- ie to all the disgustingly heavily gendered girls clothing that fills the shelves in shops? I feel that uniform is pretty protective. I take the point that ties are part of a masculine construct and it might seem apprpriate to resist that, though it might be good to think empirically about whether in fact the children perceive it as participating in a masc construct, given that their overwhelming experience of the tie will be in school where it is for both genders.

I can't imagine that ties "comes across as if we're saying girls can be treated like boys until they're adults, at which point they will realize that what was 'unisex' for a child is now 'masculine' for adults". Our usual concern is quite the contrary isn't it? i.e. that girls as girls are funnelled into an extreme hyper-"femininity" and inhibited from inhabiting a "unisex" space. I take the point that the tie tends towards identifying "unisex" with "masculine" and thus to confirm maleness as the default gender -- but I think that any damaging effect of that has to be seen as far less than the damaging effect of feminine-branded clothing for girls.

Agree that ties are pretty unwelcome in junior school. But if they are there, better to have them for boys and girls alike

kat2504 · 23/09/2011 09:59

As a grown woman I would never be seen out in a bottle green pleated skirt and matching green cardigan either but I was forced to wear such a monstrosity to school.
The kids are not at work. They are at school. Personally I would prefer to do away with uniform altogether, but since that is unlikely, I think we should drop the idea that it should reflect adult workwear.