My six year old daughter has just told me her baby sister can't be a 'boss baby' because all bosses are boys

[weekfour]

We’ve just had a chat at bed time, after watching Boss Baby, the animated movie. We talked about the funny bits and about how the siblings love each other and then we had a laugh about how her younger sister is the boss** baby. She looked at me so sincerely and said..

but she can’t be the boss baby can she? She’s a girl. All bosses are boys.

We’re a feminist household. Both me and her father work. We have THE SAME JOB! Her favourite book is one that we got from The People’s History Museum about feminist heros! She enjoys ballet and cricket and reading and running and would never expect a boy at school to be any better at anything than she is. We model equality and have a wide circle of friends from lots of different backgrounds. Off the top of my head, we know nearly as many women ‘bosses’ as men.

But it’s still there. Is this where the pay gap starts? With the expectations of six year olds? What do I do? How do I stop it? Where does it come from?

That is sad. I wouldn't make a huge fuss but gently reassure her. My child is four so I'm not sure how much a six year old understands but maybe just showing her some important female people / presidents etc.

It’s like it’s just crept in. I rolled of a list of all the women bosses that we know.

Looking back, I probably rolled that list off a little too strongly.

I thought at the end of the movie the next generation of Boss Baby was born, which was a girl? In the TV show, there are boy and girl babies working for the corporation.

Television and books? I had a similar comment from DS1 at a similar age- he said it was unusual me being the boss because “normally men are”.

Then I thought about the books and telly he’d been exposed to - Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder- women are token and more junior. Books often the same. At his school at the time virtually all the teachers were women and the Head was a man.

Who are the 2 biggest bosses in the UK. The Queen and Teresa May. Is her headteacher or class teacher a woman? What about ballet or Brownies?

This is so familiar. My DD is now 9 but started making similar comments a few years ago. Things like expressing surprise that mums can mow the garden just because in our house DH tends to do it. And saying she couldn’t play football because the other girls would laugh at her and call her a boy. This in spite of the fact we have brought her up from day one to know that all people are equal and that the only thing she can’t do that boys can in per standing up.

It’s soul destroying to think that these attitudes remain so ingrained that our daughters pick them up from such a young age. I have no idea how to fix the issue.

*pee

You’re right Dingdong. And I don’t think the film intentionally gives any other message. It was more of a that wouldn’t happen really because bosses are blokes.

Perhaps you could talk about the Queen and Theresa May? My DSD used to think the PM had to be a woman to "match" the Queen.

I think you handled it well OP, telling her about lady bosses. My four year old regularly tells her daddy, “mummy’s the boss of the world” - lol trying to get her learning early on

Do I have to talk about Theresa May? I might swear.

I’m definitely going to look up the book though. The one we’ve got is the Kate Pankhurst one and it’s perfect for a six year old. I know she understands it because I’ve heard her telling my Dad all about it- it’s obviously not translating into her world though.

You should also watch it again because one or more of the big big boss babies is a girl.

It really is insidious.
We are a feminist household, I'm a single mother, so I do everything around here from cooking and cleaning to gardening diy and car maintenance. There are no mens jobs, luckily because they would never get done.

My son at a similar age to your daughter, when we were talking about the new Dr. Who being a woman, piped up with, 'it can't be woman because then it would be nurse Who'
I literally wanted to cry.

Decades ago I found my niece and her little friend playing hospitals. She was nurse, he the doctor. I asked her why she wasn't the doctor -'girls can't be doctors'. She'd recently been operated on by a female surgeon. It's like air pollution, it seeps into the brain invisibly.

If that's the case then why did she come to the conclusion she did?

Because a child doesn't just absorb messages from home, they get them from peers, school, the media, dopey, essentialist adults etc.

Surely that's not that hard to understand?

Because a child doesn't just absorb messages from home, they get them from peers, school, the media, dopey, essentialist adults etc

She's a child. I highly doubt there are militant boys in her class laying down laws about the supposed patriarchy. She's a child, what media is she absorbing? Almost all TV adverts show women in a positive light and the man to be in the incapable one.

What essentialist adults is she coming into contact with in here day to day life?

Is she absorbing this via the method of osmosis?

On the nurse/doctor thing. As a child I thought they were the same job just with different names whether female or male, like steward/stewardess.

Doctors and doctresses 😂

It’s so shocking when that happens, I remember my youngest as a toddler erupting with laughter in a supermarket car park when a car pulled in next to us - the punchline to this invisible (to me) joke was a male passenger with a female driver. Even though if we ever went anywhere en famille I’d drive my car her dad would drive his. She also thought all lorry drivers were men despite not knowing even one man with an HGV license and more than a dozen women.

I highly doubt there are militant boys in her class laying down laws about the supposed patriarchy.

Oh, the 'supposed patriarchy'? Gotcha.

Oh, the 'supposed patriarchy

Yes. My boss is a woman, a mighty fine boss she is too. My peers at work are women and they are great. My Ex P is a front line medical professional. My mother runs a successful business. My sister is a deputy head.

Forgive me for thinking I don't live in a society where women are subjugated.

Forgive me for thinking I don't live in a society where women are subjugated.

And you'll forgive me for pointing out that the statistics don't agree.

And you'll forgive me for pointing out that the statistics don't agree

I live in a real world fulled by life experiences and what I see around me. I don't see subjugated women. Sorry.