Can you please help me articulate the issues with this? Jigsaw

[LimeLemonBergamot]

Have NC for this.

This is an excerpt of a lesson aimed at 6-7 year olds under the 'Celebrating Difference' topic. It's a lesson on gender diversity.

There is a character, 'B'- where it is unclear if they are male or female. Jigsaw states that 'the lesson looks at whether being a boy or girl makes a difference when choosing friends and toys'. I'm not seeing this- surely a lesson that wanted to show this would explicitly show Billy playing with toys that are stereotypically girls toys and vice versa with Bella- and make the point that this is absolutely fine and normal because toys are toys for anyone. Why is it necessary to have a character whose sex is unclear, to stimulate a discussion on 'whether being a boy or girl makes a difference when choosing friends and toys?'

I think this is reinforcing gender stereotypes- Billy and Bella throughout this conform to stereotypes based on toys, who they think boys and girls should be playing with, and at the end we are told that they are happy being a boy or girl, and B is happy being B. Why are boys and girls shown to be so rigidly conforming- that children must have to be B to not conform to stereotypes- and what is a 6 or 7 yr old supposed to think about who B is?

Please help me articulate this a bit better. I need to go back to my children's school and wonder if I've explained the issues properly.

It's rubbish because the drawing of B is identifiable as a boy, not an ambiguous genderless child.

It suggests you have to be gender non-conforming to like both boys and girls toys.

A better resource might have had Bella, looking very obviously girl, liking boys toys, and Billy, obviously boy, liking girls toys and so making the point that toys are for everyone, you don't need to change whether you are a girl or a boy.

That's a good point @AnnaMagnani - B does look more like a boy- that is what a 6-7 yr old will see.

I think it is rubbish due to having a stereotypical boy and a stereotypical girl. And indeed that you have to be gender nonconforming to play with both toys types.

I would focus on the ridiculousness of sex stereotypes, how much fun it could be had with both “boy toys” and “girl toys” and how sad for the children who stupidly excluded half of the available toys due to prejudice and sex stereotypes.

The mere fact that they start with ‘Billy wants to play with boy’s toys’ is compounding stereotypes. Children will hear that and will think there ARE boys toys and girls toys.

I take particuar issue with the fact that the ball is seen as a boys toy.
Are the girls not allowed to play with the ball unless they declare themselves transgender?
The girls only get a doll? The girls get only one toy and the boys get two?

We don't even get a jigsaw ffs.

The “Oh no, B is crying” slide makes no sense if we don’t know B’s sex. Why would children laugh at someone who might be a boy playing with boys or someone who might be a girl for playing with dolls?

It would make more sense if we knew B’s sex and could thus call out the bullying for non conformity to gendered expectations.

Or if we want to examine whether B should play with people of either sex or toys where there are gender expectations, there’s no need to imply B was bullied. It’s setting out a false situation because they’re so obsessed with gender identity and not really in challenging sex stereotypes.

The mere fact that it keeps emphasising "girl's toys" and "boy's toys" is upsetting.....

It should have said something genderless like some children like to play with dolls, some children like to play with cars, some children like to play with both and all have lots of fun!!! And show pictures of clearly boys, clearly girls and children who look androgynous playing with everything

I doubt many parents would be happy with that, and most classes under that strict stereotypical thinking would have the majority of their kids apparently 'non conforming'. Not because they need to transition but of this ridiculous political shite that 'proper girls like x' and 'proper boys like y' and if you don't get in those boxes here are the boxes you shall be stuffed in.

It's appalling. limiting, restricting, subordinating girls and stifling their freedoms and sense of self and independence while trying to separate the boys into the acceptably manly and not acceptably manly groups. It's hurling progress into reverse for both sexes to indulge grown ups with a political agenda to sell. Schools should absolutely not be passing those grown ups' issues on to kids.

Have you checked SSAUK, may be some guidance

It actually reinforces stereotypes.

All kids can play with all toys, end of.

What it needs to do is say everyone can dress how they like and play with anything they want. Fin.

What it actually says is a load of sexist rubbish that just reinforces stereotypes, and would tell kids who don't conform that they must be some kind of third gender. Which then opens up into a world of gender identities/pronouns/flags going onto trans/blockers/hormones/surgery.

I'm so bloody glad the school I'm applying to for DD next year aren't associated with this crap.

It sounds like B is an early adopter of the non binary identity, and the others are "cis"

So it's labelling a preference from an early age.

And also labelling toys as being gendered.

Tell school that toys are for children.

Any toys designed for genital use are strictly for adults, not for children, and should not be in school.

Any toys designed for children and in school are for all and any children. Any teachers policing children's use of toys by sex or storing toys in pink and blue boxes, for example, or limiting children's access, need to attend training of some sort.

You could ask if this sort of segregation of toys by sex is happening in school and whether it is approved practice. It won't be

Then you can just ask why the whole concept of categorising toys by the sex of children who are permitted to play with them is being introduced through this strangely old-fashioned presentation, and explain that you don't approve of children in 2021 being taught that there are such things as "boys' toys" and "girls' toys."

Ask to see where school diversity and inclusion policies mention and recommend this.

Job done

Agree with everyone else, lots of great points - yep this just reinforces that some toys/things are just for boys or girls in the first place, it’s actually doing the opposite of what it’s suggesting!

No child needs to be trans/non binary or anything else to play with any toys because all toys are for everyone, this whole thing is a really badly conceived idea.

It's rubbish. Quite apart from the fact that it keeps referring to 'boys' toys' and 'girls' toys', it would be far better to see Billy playing with toys usually associated with girls, not a child of supposedly indeterminate gender. That's what would challenge the children's views based on their experience.

Because let's face it, the source of the problem which causes comments or bullying is not girls playing with balls, or issues with gender-qustioning 7 year-olds, it's the devaluing of anything considered girly or feminine, the insistence that girls can only like that stuff because they are quiet and gentle 'by nature', and the idea that a boy liking non-active, non-boisterous play is somehow weak or feminine. The concept of what toys a mythical child of no apparent sex might choose is not going to challenge the stereotypes children actually see in action.

I bet this spirals up to the labels of identity, cis, trans, non binary.

(Ofsted want) Schemes of work now have to have threads of progression so that you can see how prior knowledge is built upon.

So I can see how that's how they introduce the concept at an early level

Thank you all- some really helpful points here and have clarified my own thoughts- as well as some other things to note. Agree about the 'B is crying' slide and that B appears to be non-binary. Very very clear that this is reinforcing stereotypes.

This is part of a wider conversation with the school that I've been having- they gave me this along with some other resources which I'm working my way through. In fairness the school have been very willing to engage and listen. I'm hoping to continue the conversation with them and the replies on this thread have been really useful.

What a horrible resource. It stereotypes Billy and Bella, and that then creates a mental model where B is victimised. And only B has full personhood at the end, “happy being B” while the other two are confined to their role as “boy” and “girl”. It is a clear example of gender bias as it reinforces stereotypes. Back in the day, organisations like UNESCO were opposed to gender stereotypes being reinforced in education: www.lsc.vu.lt/dokumentai/renginiai/BlumbergThe_invisible_obstacle_to_educational_equality_2008.pdf.

I would say to the school “I am really unhappy about this resource because it reinforces gender stereotypes, which goes against all the good work the school has done and that we do at home to foster kindness and have our kids treat everyone equally. Could the school please find some anti-bullying resources that do NOT reinforce that girls or boys only play with one sort of toy?”

Labels aren't helpful to children.

They'll know that from other types of discussions eg "the naughty child" etc.

Boy and girl aren't labels; that's biology.

Toys are toys. Freedom to choose and have their own interests is all that needs to be tackled.

Send them to let toys be toys.

B is an unnecessary addition to this lesson, and thus the motives for introducing B need to be questioned. At first glance, you might assume a third unsexiest child (B) is being introduced to test sexist assumptions around toys. I think that is the obvious assumption, but the final bit about ‘B just happy being B’ makes the intent very clear.

Jigsaw is hiding the gender ideology under what seems a reasonable lesson. Therefore the point of the lesson is secondary to promoting a political ideology. That’s not on.

The whole lesson could be taught without using B, and I would suggest the school does so.

Wtf?! Unsexiest= unsexed !

This is teaching that these stereotypes are natural instead of challenging them. It also teaches that "normal" boys and girls only play with toys stereotypically coded by society for their sex. And that only a select few, special, children do not.

Which flies in the face of real life where gender-non-conforming children exist in considerable numbers and outside of the trans umbrella too.

Also, because the believers in the doctrine of gender identity are once again equating long hair with a girl and short hair with a boy, there's even more stereotypes to pick at. And I honestly don't know why they think giving B a Justin Bieber style fringe is enough to make B neither boy nor girl. In this picture, in the way they have chosen to differentiate sex by length of hair (not a biological attribute of sex), I read B as a second boy. Which means the lesson makes no sense at all.

Oh my god what a load of sexist shite! Boys toys and girls toys? And 'B' being of ambiguous gender because B likes all toys? That's just awful stereotyping right there - how is this crap progressive?

This is almost as bad as that Brownies activity sheet I saw a few years ago that asked leaders to teach this lesson by first teaching the children a select number of boy things and girl things and then to teach them that some other boy things and girl things can actually be enjoyed by both boys and girls.

No, the real lesson should have been that there are no boy things and girl things outside of easily identified biological facts and that anything can be liked and used and played with and worn by anyone, regardless of sex.