DS doesn't believe girls are as good as boys

[Rhubarbcrumbled]

And I need to change his mind! He's just started school so is still quite young, but I really don't want his views to carry on as he grows up. He's obsessed with history and especially knights and kings, although he's branched out to WW2, Vikings, Romans...basically any warfaring society. He doesn't accept that women did and can fight in an army or serve their country in any meaningful way. As an example yesterday he insisted we must have a king as 'queens can't be in charge of the army'. He was also pretty insistent that all the queens in history don't count. And no amount of examples I could give him would work.

I need help to change his mind. He idolises his Dad who works full time, who has his own 'study' in the house that DS really admires (but that's another story!), who does do 'stuff' with them but generally leaves the house to me (again, another story) but who shares a love of information and research with DS. And this goes way beyond just reading! And he is a very loving and well loved dad. I, on the other hand, am a doer (although I'm a researcher by trade!) and DS1 just doesn't appreciate that as much as a sitter and a thinker. And I do accept that DS and I are very different people!

This was getting quite long and into other territory! We have some family issues around work in the house and relationships to sort out, but what I really need are ways to start addressing DS's opinions. He likes girls and has them as friends so that's a start.

So, can anyone suggest some good examples of strong historical women that we can tempt him with. There needs to be an interesting book about them (not necessarily for a 5yo- he can cope with non-fiction well above his age) and that would be interesting to research 'around' e.g. the town they lived in, places they visited, interesting friends...you get the idea! Or any other ideas for addressing the 'girls aren't as good as boys' conundrum.

Just re-read your OP. Why in hell doesn't your DH put him straight on his factual inaccuracies? Like all that guff about "queens don't count, can't be the head of the army, never fight in wars" etc. That's factually and historically bollocks, and your DH should not be allowing him to continue to believe that any more than you should! So why isn't he correcting your DS?

DH is concerned but hasn't heard as much as me or maybe doesn't take it as seriously.

Well, if he's concerned then he should be taking it seriously, and if he's not concerned that your DS thinks that boys are better than girls then it's pretty clear where the belief is coming from.

I think this may sort itself out in time. My ds7 used to say awful things to me about how 'mummy's look after the home while daddy's work' (I work from home, bring in a good wage but because I'm always there for school pick up he didn't understand that I worked at all). He has an older sister and 5 older female cousins though who he loves, and the older two are into science and one is doing a degree in engineering so he's changed his mind about girls!

What's helped him is learning about Florence Nightingale in history and also being into Harry Potter where Hermione is the cleverest person out of them all, and also (again weirdly) Doctor Who where Martha (who was a doctor herself) saved the world a few times using her own intellect!

I used to get very concerned about this sort of thing. I was, despite all my best efforts the proud mother of two healthy stereotypes- my dd said to me at the age of about 3 "Boys are much more betterer than girls, aren't they?"

And ds was for a while convinced that women could only be nurses, not doctors, in spite of the only doctor he had ever seen being a woman, and a very much loved male family friend being a nurse.

We just plugged away, pointing out inequality,talking about the media images they saw, trying to model feminism for them, and they are now both right thinking teenagers. Ds when asked whether he was a feminist recently said instantly "Yes- only stupid people aren't"

Think of it as a process of consciousness raising. A slow plod, rather than something you can change quickly.

What you say will have no impact at all- it is what you do that counts.

Just as an aside to all the suggestions (because all that stuff is worth telling him).

He is bang on the age where children do start to express that their gender is best...it doesn't mean that those views will become entrenched, it's about starting school and mixing with larger groups of children and trying to work out who they are and where they fit in, it's really really common.

They're looking around for the first time and trying to work out what it means to be a boy or a girl and because they're young it does tend to go along the lines of well women do x and not y and men do y and not x.

Don't worry about it too much, I mean, yes talk to him when he says things you're not happy with and try to expand his view, but it is a fairly normal stage.

Good Queens to look at would be Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.

Both iron fists, both transformed the country. Talk about powerful women!

I agree- a normal stage. I have 3 sons and they pass through it. Nothing switches me off more than someone prosing on about what you should think, same with DCs. Just make sure that you live it - and your DP.

I also found that DS went through a very entrenched gender roles phase at that age despite me being a single parent and DS having seen me put up shelves and cupboards, mend cars and do wiring (as well as cooking and cleaning)

He's got over it now

I think you're fighting the wrong fight.

Your DS is a little boy who's finding his identity. A big part of his identity is "boy" so it makes sense that he'll identify with a fellow "boy" (dad) and big up boys over girls. You challenging that will only entrench his ideas further IMO as it will pit you against him and and his hero (dad).

The person who needs to be tackling this is the hero (dad). If he identifies so closely with dad then dad needs to be modelling behaviour that he will emulate, ie bigging up mum and demonstrating equality rather than just giving lip service to it.

If your DH isn't interested in doing that well that tells you all you need to know doesn't it.

Æthelflæd / Aethelfleda / Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians. Sadly I'm not sure there are any age-appropriate accounts . She started off by fighting off a raiding party attempting to kill or kidnap her on her way to her wedding, and later went on to capture Derby and Leicester, forced the Vikings to surrender their stronghold at York -- you name a major military campaign of that period and odds are she was there leading the Saxon forces.

I wouldn't have told her that men were better at fighting unless I had a very fast horse saddled up ready to make a quick getaway.

I agree that this is a normal phase

One area he could explore is aviation as there were a lot of female pioneers in that field - dh has a well read book on Amy johnson for example.

Sylvia Earle is also very interesting (marine biology)

But actually the thing that ds 'gets' is the back ground - who looked after the fields while the men were away fighting? Who protected the animals? Who kept life ticking over while the men were off killing each other?

It's not just about great women - it's also about recognising the contribution of ordinary women

I went to a 5yo's party where at the party table the boys shouted to the girls that boys were best and girls shouted back girls are best and they all continued shouting! It's their age, it's not disrespectful to either gender. My ds doesn't like girls at school, my dd doesn't like boys at school.

Anyway ask your ds how he thinks he was born if women are so useless. Or ask him who is currently on the throne.

This sounds a bit shallow compared to all these amazing women, but was reading a Lego Chima magazine with my six to year old boy today and was heartened by the female characters equality with the boys.

Li'Ella's ability with the ice axe was particularly impressive as she saved the day!

Thank you for all the replies! I'm hoping that this is just a phase (and it probably is) but at the same time I definitely want to do something positive about showing him that girls are just as capable as boys and there are lots of ways of being capable.

I think we need to have a bit more equality around the house as well as in the reading matter!

Exactly Rhubarb- it is hopeless prosing on if what your DS sees is that only women can sew on buttons and only men can put up shelves!
It is what you do that counts and never what you say.

A picture is worth a thousand words so get a few of

• Boudicca in a chariot
• Granuaile (Grace O'Malley) on one of her ships and meeting Elizabeth I
• Maggie T discussing things with the Queen during the Falklands war, and Maggie in the tank!
• various female defence ministers (there's a selection) reviewing the troops
• current serving female soldiers in their combat gear

When he comes out with something like this again I would simply tell him he's wrong.

It may seem like boys/men are better than girls/women because men were/are doing all the warfaring, but that was because a long time ago people really did believe that women couldn't do the same things as men so they weren't allowed to. Now we know better. Secondly, there are other ways of being important and warfaring may actually not be the most important thing to be good at. Wars are bad after all. Lots of people die in wars. Then tell him about how you went to university and how that is more important nowadays, and that boys and girls are equally good at learning at school. And that nowadays boys and girls can do what they want to do, rather than saying that some things are just for boys and others just for girls.

Captain Abdul's pirate school is a really nice book with a pirate girl as the main character. My DS's favourite for a long long time.

I think DH is the issue. He needs to address this. Both by being a role model, of a man who works around the house and is a partner in housework, and by researching women and men of consequence.

There was a recent Canadian study that showed that the breadth of a girl's ambition, in terms of what roles she aspired to, was influenced more by how much housework her father did than what her mother did for a career. I assume the same is true of boys, that they see you dealing the with mundane, boring housework and Daddy 'working' at interesting thing and they extrapolate.

However, Google 'Kurdish women fighters' for some kick-ass modern army women. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29085242

Ds1 made my jaw drop the other day when he told me 'boys are doctors and girls are nurses' again despite the fact our GP is female, as are at least half the allergy consultants at the hospital.

Turns out though that he didn't know the difference in roles bw a doctor and a nurse and just assumed that nurse was the name for a female doctor. So pig ignorant rather than sexist.

What happens round the house is important, but beware of reading too much into the opinions of a 4 year old. If he really admires fighters then the fact is most were men. That doesn't actually reflect that well on the male sex but he's probably a bit young to appreciate that right now.