As part of my Sociology module, I have been looking at the different factors which affect education, most recently gender. This has led me to reflect on how gender affected my time at school.
If I’m honest, I can’t think of a time in my childhood where I really felt I was being treated unfairly because I am a girl. Not playing football, being in separate races on sports day and having to wear skirts to school was just something I grew up with and didn’t question. However, I probably never felt personally discriminated against because I am quite a ‘girly girl’; I preferred playing with barbies over Pokémon and I enjoyed dressing up in skirts and dresses.
Upon reflection, there are some things now that I have picked up on which maybe didn’t hugely affect me but I see that they are examples of how my class were indirectly taught to follow our stereotypes. I remember every time the teacher needed something heavy carried somewhere they would say “Now I need some very strong boys to carry this for me”, immediately excluding us girls from even volunteering to help. I would also agree with the belief that girls get away with more than boys; there were countless times when boys were called out for being rough or distracting each other in class, however, there were also countless times that I would gossip quietly with my friends in class and it would go unnoticed. I remember growing up with the idea that the reason boys and girls were split up into different races on Sport’s Day was because boys are a lot stronger than girls, and so it is only fair to the girls to let them have a separate race, as there was no way that they could beat a boy.
Gender stereotypes has been something that I grown up with without even noticing the impact it has had in my life or how much it has been imposed on me. As a teacher in training, it is something that I will have to try to conquer, to not treat any of my class differently because they are a boy or a girl and to inspire my class to treat every one else the same regardless of their gender.
