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.

Why can’t Bella be happy being a girl, and also happy being Bella?

You could recommend My Body is Me by Rachel Rooney.

It's perfect.

www.rachelrooneypoet.com/books

Eg

1. The entire thing is based on the premise that there are "boys' toys" and "girls' toys"
2. What sex is B? B must have an actual sex, if B is a human. To small children, this might lead to confusion. Does B not have a sex? Or is B some sort of third sex? All materials need to be scientific, so this implied sexless/third-sex child contravenes guidelines
3. The fact that B is the only one who likes playing with both sorts of toys is extremely problematic, especially as B is suggested to be sexless. Why not have 4 characters: Billy and Bella, plus Bonnie - a girl who likes boy toys, and Ben - a boy who likes girl toys. That would telll children that it's okay for anyone to like any toy. The current materials - with a boy, a girl and a sexless child - imply that playing with the "wrong" toys makes you the opposite sex. That's against the guidance.
4. Why are Bella and Billy both being unkind? All the gender-conforming children are unkind to the sexless child. Only the sexless child is kind.
5. "Billy likes being a boy; Bella likes being a girl; B likes being B". Does Billy not like being Billy? Does Bella not like being Bella? How have these two children come to define themselves entirely in terms of their sex? What about B? Does B not like being a boy/girl (whichever one he/she is)? Why not? Is it not possible to like playing with both boy and girl toys, whilst also being happy with your own sex?

Summary: Materials are non-compliant. They are unscientific in their strong implication that B is neither male or female. They also suggest that liking certain toys means you might be the opposite sex, which is not allowed

The blurb also allows/ suggestion of Segway into discussion of trans if a child in the class or family member is 'identifying as trans.'

So attempts to look at gender stereotypes via a concept of gender diversity, and thus rubber stamps the concept of trans, born in wrong body, changing sex.

As that's the next logical step.

The response often heard here from adult women: 'do not fucking call me 'cis' ' because they do not conform to performing stereotypes of femininity, nor change that they do not conform while proudly calling themselves women. Adult human females. The only thing that makes a woman is to be living in a biologically adult human female body, that's it. That's all. The rest is personality and choices.

This also reminds me of the twit who came on FWR years ago now and tried to explain that all the women here were TM in denial, because real women would be embracing their feminine role of nurturing male people, putting them first, and not doing any unladylike arguing, swearing and standing up for their rights.

No. I am fully tolerant of adults holding these diverse personal beliefs, it's a free country, I'm all for religious tolerance. But this is like demanding "are you saved?" It is not ok to enforce your beliefs on others, nor teach it to children as if it's the One Truth.

This is all so helpful- thank you!

@WarriorN

Eg

DD2 favourite colour is blue! actually anything blue belongs to her. So if you have anything blue, it's not yours, just so you know....

Appalling. Makes me wonder what my kids are being taught. Makes me worry that my gender non conforming daughter might start to think she doesn’t like unicorns and pink stuff because she’s a boy

Great thread

Isn't it amazing how this ideology is pushing children back to the regressive ideas of the 1940s and 50s?

Yes. If B is happy being B, that means B is not presented as being happy being a boy or a girl - and if that's the case, that's because of how B's preferences and behaviours have been treated and how B has been made to feel for not fitting boy or girl stereotype.

The materials should not talk about boy's and girls' toys as if we all know what that is - that should be challenged. And the lesson should be that B can be happy being a boy or girl whatever they like to play with.

B (or anyone) may be unhappy with their sexed body and have dysphoria and ultimately may identify as trans - but that should have nothing to do with B's cultural preferences and behaviour.

What sharks said! All of it, but especially the point I was also going to call out that Billy and Bella end up being defined mostly by "being a boy" or "being a girl" whereas only B gets to just enjoy "being B". NONE of us walks around "being a woman" or whatever all day, we all have individual personalities and yet this suggests only B is a fully-rounded person in their own right.

ahag your point reminds me of a (secondary) school assembly we had this week which divided people into 'binary' and 'non-binary'. Who wants to be a boring old 'binary' person?!?

So, creating a binary?

Ffs.

Honestly, I'm at this point with many schools.

@WarriorN

So, creating a binary?

Ffs.

The teacher who gave the assembly teaches maths as well!!! (carefully avoiding the need for pronouns in that sentence...)

Clearly the reason B is crying is because the children have been conditioned to believe that there are such things as boys' toys and girls' toys, and the social elements of this conditioning are so powerful that anyone who doesn't conform to these sexist stereotypes is bullied into submission.

The other disturbing thing about this 'lesson' is that Bella and Billy are framed as the aggressors, and it hasn't occurred to anyone that they might be just as oppressed by sexist stereotypes as B, but because they weren't crying about it, they are assumed to be fine with the rigid and limiting stereotypes imposed on them.

It's bizarre that people think that the problem is that "not everyone fits the stereotypes" and view their own situation as utterly unique instead of twigging that perhaps they're not the first person to experience discomfort with sexist stereotypes and that perhaps those stereotypes hurt everyone.

Thank you so much for this OP. I am chasing up dd's school on their lack of response to my questions re their Jigsaw rse programme. One of my questions was about this Year 2 content, which I had seen the title of only and had my suspicions. I will be critiquing it at length!!

The teacher who gave the assembly teaches maths as well!!!

@ValancyRedfern it's so poor that your dd's school won't engage with you. The excerpt I have posted isn't a lesson plan per se but is something that schools are able to put on their websites- although I imagine most aren't! Ours isn't but may be putting it on there.

Anyway it was given to me by my DC's school (wasn't allowed to take home lesson plans- fair enough).

I think this excerpt itself makes it clear why there are serious concerns with jigsaw.

Thank you to all who've posted- it's been so helpful. I'll keep updating when I go back to the school.

@MrsOvertonsWindow

Great thread

Isn't it amazing how this ideology is pushing children back to the regressive ideas of the 1940s and 50s?

This. I swear gender roles are much more rigidly enforced now than in the 80s. What rubbish this ‘learning’ resource is.

I would really want to sit the SLT down and ask them.

What do you want the little girls in your care to have ambitions towards? Do you want to see them go confidently into STEM careers? Be police, fire service, armed forces, astronauts, the careers women have fought their way into and proved they can excel at, or do they want 'girl careers' and 'boy careers'? Because that's where this bullshit logically has to lead.

And do they want their little boys to grow up to be good fathers who can raise and nurture their children, be emotionally healthy, able to share a relationship with equal responsibilities bearing in mind these days that both parents will mostly work? Or are they training them now that boys don't do this stuff, it's girly. By which we all know, means inferior, beneath them.

This is embedding male supremacism into children.

Wrong thread sorry!

I feel this exercise is actively damaging as it reinforces stereotypes about some toys being for boys and some toys being for girls.

Unless you operate a toy with your genitalia, toys are for CHILDREN, not just children of any particular gender.

I am not surprised that identifying as non-binary is becoming more popular if it is seen as the only way of avoiding this damaging nonsense.