How to explain feminist issues to young kids?

[RowanFox]

I’m struggling. My 6 year old girl has always been a tomboy, but now is starting to want to wear pink/glitter/tiny shorts because her peers do. There’s also a lot of “girls can’t do that” starting to surface. I just don’t know how to begin this conversation, and how to continue an open dialogue on this as she gets older. I would say I’m a pretty well read feminist and she’s been exposed to a lot of the “women who did great things” type books as well as general positivity around equality. But I need more. I need guidance on how to begin to explain women’s equality issues at a child’s level that dodges my anger around this and doesn’t scare her off.
Any advice appreciated!

Well, you know, this is the 'by parents, for parents' place.

OP

Another difficult reality is that women can't do this alone. Men need to step up far more than they generally do.

I can tell DS ten times that there are no girls and boys colours but he absorbs the information better if DH says it once. DH is his primary role model.

Have you discovered the Mighty Girl website? It’s a great resource for books with female protagonists and if you sign up to their Facebook page it pops up stories of real girls and women doing inspiring things - It is great for a conversation starter as in ‘ come and look at this girl and see what she’s invented.’

I also took the approach of gently mocking people who were silly enough to think that girls couldn’t do this or that and it has worked well.

You do have to remember that at school other children and teachers and books will be continually giving them messages about girls that need to be contradicted. Sometimes you feel as if you never stop going on about it but it is really important to keep pointing out women doing well and women not conforming to stereotypes.

You can also remind them that there are lots of different kind of girls - sporty, academic, fashionistas, sciency, arty and get them to look at the girls and women around them. I think we suffer from girls being seen as a homogeneous group and stereotyped accordingly but if you can divide up the girls into different types they are harder to stereotype. All girl environments are great for making the differences between girls much more obvious.
Good luck!

Oh another thing I do a lot is (KINDLY) ask her when she does drawings of me / our family why I’m always wearing a dress, given I wear a dress about as often as her dad??

She’s still doing it but I think she is thinking about why. She clearly wants a way to express in art “this person is female/male” but doesn’t have the ability yet to do it any other way than drawing a triangle over the bodies of female people. :)

I’m definitely going to try “do you need a penis for that”, hahah...