Although I did not realise at the time gender did affect my childhood, not necessarily at school but in other areas.
From the day we are all born we receive messages about male and female gender roles. Babies are automatically colour coded, girls in pink and boys in blue. This was no different for me – looking through baby photos I noticed I was always wearing something pink. Furthermore the kinds of toys that little girls (including me) receive such as dolls and fairies give messages about feminine traits such as the idea that we have to wear pink, have beautiful long hair and clog our skin with make up. My dreams of having long hair were ruined when I got an extremely bad haircut at the age of 5, which in turn made me incredibly self-conscious. Through the media and toys and other sources having long hair was made out to be the norm and because I didn’t conform with this I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.
Like almost every girl I had a collection of Barbie dolls at home and it grew bigger every year. Barbie was everywhere – on the tv, in shops and in magazines – you couldn’t escape her. I think secretly every little girl aspired to be like Barbie. I know I did. Barbie is known for her 40-18-32 measurements, her voluminous long blonde hair and her plump pink lips and all of her other perfect features. I wanted to be her but she made me feel so inadequate. I wasn’t blonde, I wasn’t ridiculously skinny and I didn’t have a boyfriend. She made me feel so worthless. How is it right that children are being made to feel like this at such a young age?
I know that toys are a part of growing up but I think the way the media portray certain girl’s toys has had a major impact on my confidence from a very young age. One of the main elements of the CfE is ‘confident individuals.’ Maybe as a society we need to look at the impact of toys like Barbie and stereotypes in general have on self-esteem so that it does not become more of an issue and affect school life. I can say that from personal experience low confidence from gender stereotypes did affect my schooling and as a teacher I want to help right this wrong so other children avoid having to go through the same thing.
