Gender images
My five year old daughter is not a fan of gender equality. At all. She loves pink, cries that I won’t buy her high heels, feels guilty for liking the Avengers (“I’m strange because I like boys things and I don’t want to be a tomboy any more mummy”) and has explained to me that she can’t be a doctor because girls aren’t doctors, girls are nurses. What I’m trying to say is that despite my best efforts, and believe me they have been numerous, she has strongly absorbed the gender bias from our culture. She loves things from both sides of the traditional gender spectrum, but she keenly feels the pressure to conform and looks on “boys things” like dinosaurs, superheroes and rough games (her phrase) as a guilty pleasure, while her other enjoyments like princesses, dressing up and dolls are far less stressful because she knows that they’re ok to like.
Her dad and I have tried all we can to persuade her that it’s ok, girls and boys can do anything. Her dad is a great cook, far more patient with the kids than I often am, and draws and colours extremely well. I have a BSc and I’m the DIY expert in the house - everyone knows that the drills, saws and multitools they’re not allowed to play with are mummy’s toys. We both larp, play RPGs, and have just rediscovered wargaming. My daughter, on the other hand, cannot be convinced that this is socially acceptable behaviour for a female. It breaks my heart, not least because I can see how much she enjoys it when she lets herself indulge in such games, but she knows what society demands of her and acquiesces to those roles with a practical mind, focussing on enjoying the girls things to the hilt.
And yet.
For the past few weeks, her ambition in life has become to go to high school and learn science so she can be a scientist. We’ve discussed it and I’ve explained all the different types of science she can do and she’s decided on physics, so she gets to invent things. And I’ve discussed this with bated breath, waiting for it all to go wrong, because if she thought for a moment that science was a boy’s thing there would be tears and frustration and disappointment and she would drop the idea entirely.
I’ve thought about this a fair bit and the only conclusion I can come to is that we, as a society, have won. Science is now for both genders.
When I was younger I was one of four girls in my year who did the Physics Higher and I remember fondly the number of courses Johnny Ball ran at Glasgow University that I got to go on because they were open to an equal number of girls and boys from each school, so we always got a turn - being university rector allowed him to push his equality agenda, but as one of the four out of about 90 it was quite a major imbalance at the time. Now I’m older I’ve been watching Nina And The Neurons, seen the lego (female) scientist in the minifigure packs and Elise Andrew, the person behind I F**King Love Science, and I can’t deny there are more female scientists in children’s media (ok, that last one isn’t exactly for children, but she sees us looking at it with the title hidden) - but then she’s been seen by a female doctor, my friend Dr Jude has talked to her about medicine, she’s dealt with nurses Alan and Bernard when her younger sister hurt her leg, Doc McStuffins is a girl, and yet she can’t accept that women can be doctors and men can be nurses.
Obviously I hope that we’re not going to go the other way and have boys afraid to do science in case they’re seen as girly, but I don’t really see that as likely given current society. It seems that this may be a situation where we have actually reached equality in the eyes of its harshest judge: a self-conscious five year old.
Her dad and I have tried all we can to persuade her that it’s ok, girls and boys can do anything. Her dad is a great cook, far more patient with the kids than I often am, and draws and colours extremely well. I have a BSc and I’m the DIY expert in the house - everyone knows that the drills, saws and multitools they’re not allowed to play with are mummy’s toys. We both larp, play RPGs, and have just rediscovered wargaming. My daughter, on the other hand, cannot be convinced that this is socially acceptable behaviour for a female. It breaks my heart, not least because I can see how much she enjoys it when she lets herself indulge in such games, but she knows what society demands of her and acquiesces to those roles with a practical mind, focussing on enjoying the girls things to the hilt.
And yet.
For the past few weeks, her ambition in life has become to go to high school and learn science so she can be a scientist. We’ve discussed it and I’ve explained all the different types of science she can do and she’s decided on physics, so she gets to invent things. And I’ve discussed this with bated breath, waiting for it all to go wrong, because if she thought for a moment that science was a boy’s thing there would be tears and frustration and disappointment and she would drop the idea entirely.
I’ve thought about this a fair bit and the only conclusion I can come to is that we, as a society, have won. Science is now for both genders.
When I was younger I was one of four girls in my year who did the Physics Higher and I remember fondly the number of courses Johnny Ball ran at Glasgow University that I got to go on because they were open to an equal number of girls and boys from each school, so we always got a turn - being university rector allowed him to push his equality agenda, but as one of the four out of about 90 it was quite a major imbalance at the time. Now I’m older I’ve been watching Nina And The Neurons, seen the lego (female) scientist in the minifigure packs and Elise Andrew, the person behind I F**King Love Science, and I can’t deny there are more female scientists in children’s media (ok, that last one isn’t exactly for children, but she sees us looking at it with the title hidden) - but then she’s been seen by a female doctor, my friend Dr Jude has talked to her about medicine, she’s dealt with nurses Alan and Bernard when her younger sister hurt her leg, Doc McStuffins is a girl, and yet she can’t accept that women can be doctors and men can be nurses.
Obviously I hope that we’re not going to go the other way and have boys afraid to do science in case they’re seen as girly, but I don’t really see that as likely given current society. It seems that this may be a situation where we have actually reached equality in the eyes of its harshest judge: a self-conscious five year old.