Sexism in education

[Z0rr0]

Looking for examples of issues where girls are disadvantaged in schools and/or schools have found ways to tackle this (or not).
It's for a thing I'm working on.
Intersectional views including issues of class, race, disability, sexuality are welcomed.
Topics include uniform, menstruation, access to subjects, P.E., physical & mental wellbeing, safeguarding, sexual harassment etc.
Also interested in any orgs tackling these things and any recent amendments to govt law / guidance besides Equalities Act and access to menstrual products.
Who is active in this area?
Thank you.

Good point @PlanDeRaccordement. Thank you.

I’ve got one relatively minor one... shoes

Boys shoes, tough, warm, suitable for exercising

Girls, Mary Jane styles predominating, thin soles etc.

Now before anyone says that there are lines of girls shoes which are more robust (even if they do exist for less than £60) the girls will often lean towards the prettier ones (and after having a very ‘practical’ dad who always insisted on hideous bully-magnet coats and shoes in my school days - think army surplus stores - I don’t force anything on her)

The issue I had with the school was getting the ks1 children to run their “daily mile” in school shoes which I’m sure contributed to my daughter periodically suffering with severs disease (growing pains where Achilles grows quickly and pulls on the growth plate in the heel) we also wore through shoes quicker than she grew out of them.

It was a bit of a battle with the school to allow them to change into trainers for their daily mile running. Boys, no probs, school shoes good to go.

Are girls being taught even at this young age that the styling of their uniform over-rides practicality/comfort? Would allowing the wearing of trainers for any outdoor activity/playtime help level the playing field as if were?

PE curtain to divide classroom into single sex changing area not available until year 5, most girls are ready for it in year 4.

My girl used to dilute boys down in class and to be an assistant to her less able boy partner! She used to get really fed up with this.

My girl being told by boys she couldn't be a pilot when she was older as she was a girl.

Mixed sex after school football in reception, the boys wouldn't pass to the two girls there so my daughter left due to exclusion.

Take a look at Safe School Alliance resources as they have factsheets on sexism in secondary schools and mixed sex toilets among other things.
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/

The Institute of Physics has done a lot of work on why more girls don't do physics, and what interventions can change this.

Most successful one was tackling gender stereotyping at a whole school level, with everyone on board from the headteacher down.

Check out the education section of the IoP website

I wonder if speaking to truant officers might be useful to you? A truant officer friend tells me they have girls skipping school during their periods due to mixed sex toilets.

Thanks @RumbaswithPumbaas that's interesting and an angle I hadn't thought of, but the pressure on shoes for girls is mad. Both mine wondered if theirs would be acceptable with the other girls. [eyeroll] Another reason to hate Lelli Kelli. (Is that still a thing?)
@FemaleAndLearning Thanks for the tip, I'll have a look. And yes, annoying that the sexist beliefs start so young.
@DurtySarf Ooh, great tip. Thanks so much. And yes, definitely all these things need to be tackled across the whole school. If girls suffer harassment, boys are part of the solution.
@Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons Yes, that's part of the research I have. Absence between the sexes is the same age 5-10, from 10 the rates start to rise and is higher in boys until 12 and from 13 it is consistently higher in girls. The median age to start a period is 12.9 years. Girls regularly miss school because of having their periods. It's unclear whether it's because of feeling too unwell or if there are issues at school which make them feel less confident about menstruating there. But good idea about a safeguarding / truancy person.

As a midday supervisor I echo the points regarding the boys dominating the playground - no amount of appeals to reason is able to shake their already ingrained notion of entitlement to more space, leaving the girls to fit in around the edges. I try not to reward bad behaviour and ban their games on a regular basis for being downright hazardous to the littlies, but am saddened that I have to take this hardline approach, that in primary they don't accept boys enjoyment of football is not more valuable than the girls playing corners.
As an adult learner, also, I still saw female students being expected to babysit males, on an accountancy course no less.

We changed from mixed to single sex at 8. By then had been told ‘ girls can’t do that’ a lot by little boys particularly with regards to sport. Boys were also taking up much of the teacher’s time with bad behaviour. Girls were already being pushed into stereotypes by their boy and girl peers.
Single sex school removed a lot of those issues. Never told they can’t do anything, in fact the opposite. Good tech activities for girls, good sport. Also girls split into different groupings not just girl/boy so stereotypes are broken down. Girls are free to like Star Wars or fashion, art or sport without being told it is a boy or girl thing.

On the down side I still see issues with curriculum and the materials they use. The history, religion, English and social studies curriculum very much still focuses on men although the teachers do their best to bring in some female examples they are often not mainstream. Issues of sexism are not routinely addressed and sometimes not accepted or understood by teachers. We discuss the male headline acts in movements but not women’s role in those movements. As soon as we simplify a topic the women are filtered out.

A family friend was writing materials for school use - potted histories- and she pointed out that all the people she had been asked to write about were men. She asked if she could put some women in instead and they agreed but if she hadn’t spoken up nothing would be done.

Because of this bias in school teaching both boys and girls think that only men did anything in the past rather than understanding the bias.

@OhGodWhatTheHellNow That's really sad about the differences in play style meaning the girls are squeezed out. Great insight tho, thank you. And ugh about women having to manage male behaviour. FFS!!
Thanks @SonEtLumiere. So annoying about the differences in PE.
@Sillydoggy that's so striking that the erasure of women in learning is so ingrained. Imagine it's even worse for minorities. Bloody hell. And we think we're progressive!

That’s an interesting point about minorities but then they are minorities rather than 52% of the population. The American civil rights movement was given airtime but not the Suffragette movement, Gandhi got a place as well. I think we are actually better at discussing racism than sexism especially when the race movements are lead by men. Other minority groups - disability and sexuality are absolutely hidden in the curriculum but is it wrong to start with objections to leaving out half our population?

One of the things I hated when my DD was in primary was that at playtime, a lot of the boys used to play football. It would take up a huge amount of the playground, and it was impossible to walk across it in case you got hit by the ball. So girls would end up huddled in corners.

Thanks @RoyalCorgi, yes this aspect has been enlightening to me.
Cheers @Sillydoggy the comment was more of a 'note to self' really as the thing I'm bidding for is clear about using an 'intersectional lens', but yes, good point again. Thank you.

DDs school is pretty good but I had to take the inequality of the football teams up with the sports dept. The boys football was well resourced and supported but the girls was a bit of an after thought , they didn’t have kit or even a proper coach. I Did manage to get this changed and I also got the school to stop referring to “Football” and “Girls Football” and now it’s “Boys Football” and “Girls Football” but I faced a lot of eye rolling and the sports dept vanishing when we they saw me coming for quite some time first.

I think the football/playground thing is a huge thing and in the context of what your'e looking for, you must read that chapter in Invisible Women. The basic premise is that to prevent this domination of playgrounds, the idea is that girls should be encouraged to play football - ie to conform to the male stereotype.

I recently discovered that boys at DC' school are not allowed football on the playground at playtime and am THRILLED.

Still on football, because fewer girls sign up for football, at our school, girls football is practiced on the somewhat dodgy playground while the boys go to proper astroturf facilities a 5 minute walk away. I appreciate that with a small group the facilities on the premises are probably acceptable but the point is that the boys are getting a much better experience because it's convenient.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that CHOICE in school uniform shouldn't be a thing and that girls and boys should both be restricted to trousers/shorts. Simply because social pressure means that the girls tend to wear skirts, even when it's not necessarily their preference. Skirts at school are entirely impractical for reasons from sitting on floor during assemblies, playing in playground, walking up and down stairs etc.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that CHOICE in school uniform shouldn't be a thing and that girls and boys should both be restricted to trousers/shorts. Simply because social pressure means that the girls tend to wear skirts, even when it's not necessarily their preference. Skirts at school are entirely impractical for reasons from sitting on floor during assemblies, playing in playground, walking up and down stairs etc

Thay immediately makes things harder for girls though. Skirts are easier for many when it comes to periods. You can layer up with shorts and you dont get the bulges if you have to double up or whatever on sab pro. What schools deem as acceptable trousers for school ars also the worst ones to find to fit should you have dared hit puberty but still are short and there are far to many instances of sporty girls being accused of wearing skinny trousers for having more muscular thighs.

Its removing options for girls and making their lives more difficult.

It also highlights how unisex is always default male.

@SarahTancredi - those are all good points (although as a teenager, I can categorically say that if I'd been able to wear trousers when on my period I would have been a LOT happier as finding ways to ensure my sanpro was snug and comfortable without any additional layers being visible under my skirt was pretty hard. Admittedly, in my day, wearing shorts/leggings etc under skirts was not acceptable visually so perhaps it's different for teenagers now).

I'm still struggling with this one myself because I agree - the fact that unisex tends to be default male and taking away choices from girls feels wrong. But, in THIS case, the reason I'm leaning that way is because

1. trousers (done properly - you're totally right about crappy fit/ style etc) are less likely to lead to the girls having modesty issues and therefore choosing not to run/play/take part
2. I WANT girls to be choosing skirts by choice but I am deeply suspicious that it's peer pressure. DD is 5. She wears trousers and leggings at home a lot. She loves a dress/skirt but doesn't wear them all the time. But she point blank refuses to wear trousers for school because she says that it's not as "pretty"?! WTF?

But I haven't come down on a definitive answer as yet. I struggle with the girls clothing thing overall. eg, I'll defend to the death a girl/women's right to wear what she likes and if that shows her body that's up to her and you better not dare to shame her for that. However, I'm equally troubled by the fact that we seem to bring up girls to think the default way to dress is to wear tight/short clothes. Eg, default trousers for girls are leggings, leggings or skinny jeans. Why is that? When I see groups of teenagers the boys are usually wearing t-shirts (style varies from slim cut to baggy), hoodies, jeans. The girls are almost always wearing skin tight jeggings/leggings and little boob tubes with their bellies exposed. I am thrilled they are comfortable with that. And very concerned that it's the default.

Our girls school started trousers recently, very few girls wear them, they don’t last well in terms of size and they get holes in them when you crawl around in bushes. I agree that forcing girls into trousers along with encouraging them to play football is just pushing everyone to default male. If you want to fix the problem at its root then deal with the behaviour of the boys. Do you think the young girls in single sex school care about people seeing their pants when they crawl through the bushes? We tolerate boys pointing and staring with no comment - that is what needs to change.

I never wear dresses either unless its an wedding or a funeral and that's only because I seem to have a body shape which means that by the time they get over ny hips arse and thighs they are massive round the waist and fall down . Legs always trail across the floor.

Both my dds seem to have the same issue where they are long in the body but have short legs. Dd1 hates skirts. However finding trousers that fit her is a nightmare. I see alot of men on skinny Jeans round here. Dd1 likes them because finally theres a pair that doesnt trail along the floor and get soggy/ frayed.

Dd2 wears trousers to school but that's only because I buy her skinny trousers as for primary we can get away with it. The more " normal" style trousers not only make them look like they are wearing nappies with the excess material around the arse and crotch they appear to have never been anywhere near a child/girl in their design_construction. You cabt ride a bike or run when the knees dont bend properly and the seam threatens to slice you in half lengthways.

All dd1s friends are the same. Wont catch them dead in a skirt outside of school but good luck finding trousers that fit

I remember my first pair of trousers in 6th form as that was when they allowed you to. They didnt fit at all but I wore them out of principle

Leggings and skinny jeans seem to just fit better. It's not the end of the world if they are a little on the large/long side

Unlike other styles where you trip over them

Thanks @Hoppinggreen and @BlingLoving I will def read Invisible Women.
Thank you everyone for all your thoughts, this has been hugely interesting and valuable to me.
Don't get me started on social pressure on skirts. My DD1 prefers trousers but all the cool girls wear skirts rolled up so she gets told she must be a lesbian. Like none of the kids mums or female teachers ever wear trousers ffs.

I did a PGCE about 10 years ago. One of the topics we covered was 'How boys and girls learn differently', which was just lots of stereotypes about how boys like to learn practically and need to move around and like non-fiction.... I truly hope this isn't being taught anymore but there are lots of teachers from my cohort still around and teaching in schools.

Skimming th eg bread and can't see it; on the back of the bbc prog no more boys and girls, the GEC was set up tackling gender stereotypes.

Somewhere there's a breakdown of the sexes and the subjects they take at gcse; and a level, very obviously divided by gender/sex but unclear why.

Not sure if it's exactly what you want but it's clear that sexist approaches have impact.

thegec.org/

Jesus jelly, that was only 10 years ago?!