I do not remember gender affecting me as a child. I was and still am quite a girly girl and had lots of dolls and Barbie’s. However, I would not say that I was pushed towards certain gender areas with toys or clothing. I played football and other sports with the boys in my neighbourhood and I had a little cabin in the garden that my dad built for me.
My primary school did not have anything that the boys did, but that girls didn’t. We all played sports together in P.E. and had mixed teams for sports day. I thought this was normal but when speaking about this topic with my peers and friends I discovered that every school was different. I was extremely surprised to discover that different primary schools, even ones in the same city as me, were separated for P.E. and sports day. In these sports days they would have ‘boy’s races’ and ‘girl’s races’. I also found out that not only were they separated by gender but they were also separated by age for these races. At my primary school we had mixed sex teams with a couple of people from each primary year.
The difference between all of these primary schools has really surprised me and shown me that whilst I maybe did not have a gender divide at all in my childhood, quite a lot of people did.