No more girls and boys; can our children go gender free? BBC 2 tonight

[Ekphrasis]

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09202lp

I heard PM in radio 4 discussing this research, it seems to hugely benefit girls in terms of their views on their own achievements and the achievements of women in general.

Will listen with interest.

What surprised me (as we have had this language banned in my place of work, with children) is that the teacher, pre experiment, called girls sweetie and petal, and boys buddy etc.

I hear assumptions all the time in the classroom - and I see children conforming to a stereotype. I teach a lot less know but I still try to encourage everyone, to build their self esteem and to challenge stereotypes. It's so hard though with society as a whole.

Still, every bit helps.

The saving grace I guess is that most primary school teachers are women (ironic) so surely they don't run their classrooms in the atrocious way this teacher did

OTOH - what stereotypes and assumptions do they make about boys and girls?

As a parent of a child about to start school I found it very surprising how gender stereotyped the classroom was and that the teacher could get away with calling the girls 'love' and boys 'mate'. The little girl who thought she would only get 5 on the strength test then scored 10 summed a lot of it up for me. It also made me glad I have a son, I wish it didn't and it shouldn't be a battle for girls to grow up equal but it appears that girls are still considered the weaker sex. It absolutely fucking disgraceful.

"Interventions in the classroom aren't going to be enough"

Bingo.

The women teachers in DDs primary school are bright, forward thinking and don't appear to be as clueless as the male teacher in tonights programme.

It does make you wonder whether the programme would have been different if they had used a female teacher.

Do females in these crucial roles help or hinder girls?

I was a sixties child. We had Home Economics at school in the early seventies for cake baking, ironing and typing, whereas boys had car mechanics and woodwork. But we were never dressed as pink princesses. We all expected to work not just parent. As kids we played out on our bikes/with trains, built dens, went fishing, played at being Batman/Superman/Avengers. As 6th formers, for good or bad, we despised girls who just wanted to get married and have babies. My very traditional mum would never have dressed us in pink for a girl or put a tiara on our heads. When did this start? Have we gone backwards?

Do females in these crucial roles help or hinder girls

Depends on the teacher. I've seen teachers and TAs reinforce stereotypes and expectations and I've seen teachers and TAs challenge expectations. Regardless of their sex.

But blame, it's as bad for the boys.

They're taught to consider winning as the be all and end all (Riley) and then can't handle it when they don't, and haven't had the emotional intelligence instilled into them needed to handle it.

I can link several threads here to this research: male violence, male suicide, the gender pay gap, probably even the endless trans threads, as woe betide a little boy likes pink and dolls, they must be trans (and I've witnessed EXACTLY this in my own classroom; luckily the child got very good support at home and school, and was able to enjoy pink and his love of hair and grow up knowing he was a boy. Later (much later) decided he was gay but that's by the by.)

I don't think using a female teacher would have made that much difference. In my, albeit limited experience, the gender stereotyping is so "normalised" that most don't even notice it.

I will put my hands up and admit that whilst it's something that I'm very aware of still on occasion go into stereotyping as that is my norm reference.

It was depressing following twitter during that programme. So many negative comments.

It's the same for other groups - all the messages they get from society and the expectations. It's what Trump is about. All the messages given out and the reinforcing of difference, with the notion that 1 group is better than others.

beachy, I'm a xiennial. I remember the pink stuff and make up etc but there was enough of the things you describe for us too to enjoy all of that. Ioved climbing trees and making bows and arrows, I was great at creating a sling shot and a catapult.

I think some of it's come in on the last 20 years, more tv shows, social media etc.

However, 'boys don't cry' has been around for a long time.

I found it an interesting programme and was pleased they made the point about male violence.

I'm interested in Cheryl Sandberg's claim that girls who put their hands up in class are less likely to be chosen than boys, and so, by a certain age, girls learn to stop putting their hands up. Since reading this, I try to observe whenever I'm in school, and would say there seems to be some truth in it. You can change use gender neutral toys, books and language till the cows come home, but I can't see them having much impact until girls stop being invisible.

I watched with suspicion to me it was more of the trans agenda masked as an innocuous documentary about equality.
Whilst I support equality between the sexes this was about more than that- paving a pathway of thought that leads to an inlet for something else. A few observations-
The use of male/female toilet sharing mentioned, use of female spaces. Although yet to be fully covered.
The sentence that said get rid of language that differentiates between the sexes- change of language consistent with wants of transactivists.
Planting the seed male female are equally strong... paving the way for us both to compete in sport against each other.
I think it was dressed up as something positive but ultimately had a hidden agenda. I think it was propaganda, subtle but then propaganda is to be effective. It appeals to parents as something positive, ensuring equal opportunities but to do this we must share spaces, alter language use etc, so that parents are more likely to be accepting when this is pushed on us.

I'm interested in Cheryl Sandberg's claim that girls who put their hands up in class are less likely to be chosen than boys, and so, by a certain age, girls learn to stop putting their hands up

There's an interesting discussion to be had over 'hands up'. Is it the best way to find out what someone knows? There are plenty of alternatives that are good classroom practice.

My dd is a gymnast. Spends about 7 hours a week conditioning - strength exercises, chin ups, press ups etc, in addition to the learning flips bit.

She gets really pissed off at school when teachers ask for "4 strong boys" to help move a table, when she knows she is stronger than all of them. The teachers know it too, they've seen how strong she is. but it is so far ingrained to ask boys to do the physical tasks they never think to ask her, the strongest, most physical kid in the class.

Ha - can beat you there. We didn't have 'Home Economics' - it was 'Housecraft'

There were lots of structural differences at primary - girls' and boys' yards, boys did craft/woodwork, girls did needlework, boys helped with the dinner tables, girls helped with the little infants etc. but they expected everyone to do their very best in the other work whether they were a girl or boy. There were certainly no differences when you were lined up in front of the blackboard for the ruler on the back of the legs Goodness knows how they would have reacted if someone had worn a tiara in school.

She gets really pissed off at school when teachers ask for "4 strong boys" to help move a table

And then teachers ask for 4 girls to help tidy up and sharpen the pencils please...

Hear it so often.

Last year I had to ask my Y9 top maths set if they wanted to do the intermediate maths challenge because we had spaces for about half the class. I asked for volunteers and a bunch of boys put their hands up. Even the girl who was the best mathematician in the class didn't volunteer. After putting down 10 boys' names I said I wasn't going to take any more boys and strong-armed some girls into doing it, but I had to tell them that I was putting their name down. They just wouldn't put themselves forward, it was very interesting.

missymoo I see the absolute opposite. I don't see any subconscious trans stuff in it. I see it as showing how the trans stuff evolves as a result of the way we stereotype so strongly. Secondary sexual characteristics develop at puberty; they were careful to point out the sexes have equal strength till then. He's showing how, if we push the gender stereotypes when they're young, any child who feels they don't fit that stereotype runs the risk of being labelled not of their sex, and feeling very much as if they don't fit in.

She gets really pissed off at school when teachers ask for "4 strong boys" to help move a table
*
And then teachers ask for 4 girls to help tidy up and sharpen the pencils please...*

I think I have always worked in very progressive schools then

I call all my kids sweetpea ,boys and girls. 😬
The best "tidiers" in the class are boys but 1.they make quite a show of it 2.they're so focused on tidying they forget to come to the carpet/listen to instructions,whereas the girls do their job and go sit down.
When I ask kids to help with heavier stuff (laptops,PE equipment) their sex does not come into it. I ask a kid that might need some time out of the class, or as a reward for good behaviour, or as a chance to make up for a previous transgression, a kid that might need some praise or a confidence boost,or simply a kid sitting quietly instead of the 5 that asked 20 times already.

It breaks my heart though that some of them are so (learned) sexist even at a young age . They are so engaged during PHSE /class talks and discussing differences and there's no boy this boy that,anyone can like pink and blue etc. that you think you're making a difference,but during playtime some of them instantly revert to their gender roles and insist others do too.

Secondary sexual characteristics develop at puberty; they were careful to point out the sexes have equal strength till then.

Sport wise, the british swimming association has very clear rules on trans athletes. Basically pre puberty, they are allowed to compete in their chosen gender, as there is no advantage for either sex. Once they enter puberty, they have to submit to a yearly assesment. Once they are deemed to have a physical advantage they must compete as their biological sex.

I am a swimming coach and had reason to implement this rule. Most parents argued against it and were very suprised when the child in question only came mid pack, rather than winning by miles. They all assumed a biological boy would beat biological girls every time.

Yet we still tell primary aged children boys are stronger and better at sport.

Ekphrasis

I've read the comments, but can't bring myself to sit through the programme.

Maintaining that there is no difference between boys and girls prior to puberty is definitely not part of the trans agenda, I agree.

Showing boys doing ballet and claiming it's perfectly natural, shoots a hole through the ideology.

What this man is doing is a very good idea. He just needs to understand the reason why gender roles are there in the first place, though. But you would have to understand feminism to know that.

He needs to understand that women are kept in line, not just by sexism, but by the threat that underpins it.

Hence the need for privacy and safety away from males when they are vulnerable.

I'm glad he talked about male violence. If anyone's got a second, perhaps they can expand?

But I realise that's not really fair, because I chose not to watch it!

(disclaimer: i have had quite a stressful week)

I actually cried during this because it breaks my heart to see what girls think of themselves and how much boys struggle to express themselves.

I suspect it's going to get worse when they delve into their home lives next week. I think it'll be especially interesting to see if they speak to riley's parents. I would hope that his response to not completing the strength test was atypical and there are other factors at play.

I was on a thread recently where people were laughing at the idea of picking up gender stereotypes from school.

Hopefully people will see this documentary and acknowledge what a huge problem this really is.

Yes it is shocking that teachers have no training in recognising stereotyping or unconscious bias. Totally shocking. So can we now move to the doing something about it phase?