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Equality Starts in Pre-school
I have a confession to make. After going through 4 months of gender studies, I have started taking the easy way out of guessing the biological sex of a baby by their clothes, and not their physical features. And if their clothes are not informative enough, their toys and whatsoever parents put with their children will help. To this point, I think it is rather obvious that I am not one who has been around little kids a lot. I think all babies look the same; red and tiny. But I am also aware that I would subconsciously categorise people according to their sex (and race, age, etc); but now that I am aware of it, I don’t think it is a subconscious act anymore. –These are probably the advantages of being a sociology student.
Anyway, I have to admit, this (referring to guessing the gender of the baby) was what I was thinking about when I read the first bit of the opening statement of the article: “Equality starts in Pre-school”. The line went “A blue cup for her and a pink cup for him — does that sound weird? Not for Swedish children. Gender pedagogy at pre-school level puts everyone on an equal footing”. Just to mention briefly about this article, Switzerland adopted a education system that goes out of its way to ensure that gender roles are not learned by the children (note that I use learned and not taught) in order to ensure that gender equality can be achieved. This process begins in pre-school, where children are between twelve months to five years old. Teachers make sure that they treat children of both sexes equally. The teachers also observe the children to look for differences in abilities that the children develop, and they will organise activities to correct them. An example from the article is as follows “we keep boys and girls separated during lunch, since girls from an early age know that they are expected to serve others. We want to teach them to think more about their own needs.” They even removed gender-specific toys such as cars and dolls. According to interviews with the teenagers who went through such a education system, they were more open-minded as teenagers. Furthermore, their teachers noticed that the boys were “unusually calm, with well-developed language skills and social competence” while the girls were “more secure and could make themselves heard”. An individual who was not raised with gender pedagogy believes that if he was raised with gender pedagogy, he would have “fewer subconscious prejudices about men and women”. The basic idea of this system is to free children from the expectations and demands that the society has traditionally put on girls and boys.
Following this train of thought, the reading on “Becoming Male or Female” by Brownyn Davies comes to mind. The reading mentions that children are active agents in the socialisation process and they always strive to “get gender right”. Therefore, the meanings of being a male or female is to adopt masculine or feminine identities accordingly, through their toys, clothes, and even games. He also emphasizes that these gender identities are reinforced by the adults by rewards and sanctions (or punishments) (Davies, 2002). Therefore, this model of gender pedagogy that these pre-schools adopt, aim to counter and prevent the reinforcement and reproduction of gender roles.
In my opinion, this is a rather good solution to gender inequality. However, not all societies are suitable to adopt this model, as gender inequality is a result of several factors, from religion to the nature of the societies. Furthermore, its effectiveness can be undermined by the ubiquity of the media that reinforces gender roles.
Yet this model does have its merits. Considering some of the phenomenas we have covered in this course, such as rape and becoming a male or female, I seek to apply this model into these circumstances.
I believe that if children were raised in an environment where they did not learn gender roles and where these children received equal treatments and expectations from the adults, their definitions of masculinity and feminity would differ from ours. Therefore, the meanings they attach to their actions would also be different. Taking this into consideration and with reference to the reading on rape (Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke), sexual violence due to the motivations for male dominance would decrease, or would not exist (but this is unlikely to happen due to the incredible amount of information one can access to via the internet and the media). Essentially, males would not engage in activities that will "boost" their masculinity, and the same applies to females.
Furthermore, this environment also encourages children to reach their full potential. They would not feel like they have to conform to various characteristics of their gender roles such as “boys are good at numbers while girls are not”, “boys tend to be rowdier while girls are more obedient”. Therefore, when girls do not do as well as boys in math, adults turn to these stereotypes to explain this trend (Davies, 2002). In this environment, these children are able to progress freely without pressures from their peers or adults; they would not feel the pressures to hold back their talents just to conform to certain expectations of the society. Thus, the society is able to benefit from these individuals when they join the workforce. The results of gender pedagogy is after all having boys that are "unusually calm, with well-developed language skills and social competence” while the girls were “more secure and could make themselves heard”. These are results that are beneficial to both the individual and the society.
All in all, I am confident that this system can help tackle the problem of gender inequality. Mostly because these children will grow up with the perspective that they are not weaker nor stronger than the opposite sex; what a male can do, a female can do too; the same goes for what a female can do, a male can do too. However, to completely solve the problem of gender inequality, I believe that every aspect of the society has to be involved: from families to corporations and governments. Their combined efforts will eventually result in a creation of a new cultural script for the individuals to follow, one that is equal for both men and women.
References
Davies, Brownyn (2002) "Becoming Male or Female" In: Gender: A Sociological Reader. London: Routledge.
Watson-Franke, Maria-Barbara (2002) "A World in which Women Move Freely without Fear of Men: An Anthropological Perspective on Rape," Women's Studies International Forum 25(6): 599-606
Anyway, I have to admit, this (referring to guessing the gender of the baby) was what I was thinking about when I read the first bit of the opening statement of the article: “Equality starts in Pre-school”. The line went “A blue cup for her and a pink cup for him — does that sound weird? Not for Swedish children. Gender pedagogy at pre-school level puts everyone on an equal footing”. Just to mention briefly about this article, Switzerland adopted a education system that goes out of its way to ensure that gender roles are not learned by the children (note that I use learned and not taught) in order to ensure that gender equality can be achieved. This process begins in pre-school, where children are between twelve months to five years old. Teachers make sure that they treat children of both sexes equally. The teachers also observe the children to look for differences in abilities that the children develop, and they will organise activities to correct them. An example from the article is as follows “we keep boys and girls separated during lunch, since girls from an early age know that they are expected to serve others. We want to teach them to think more about their own needs.” They even removed gender-specific toys such as cars and dolls. According to interviews with the teenagers who went through such a education system, they were more open-minded as teenagers. Furthermore, their teachers noticed that the boys were “unusually calm, with well-developed language skills and social competence” while the girls were “more secure and could make themselves heard”. An individual who was not raised with gender pedagogy believes that if he was raised with gender pedagogy, he would have “fewer subconscious prejudices about men and women”. The basic idea of this system is to free children from the expectations and demands that the society has traditionally put on girls and boys.
Following this train of thought, the reading on “Becoming Male or Female” by Brownyn Davies comes to mind. The reading mentions that children are active agents in the socialisation process and they always strive to “get gender right”. Therefore, the meanings of being a male or female is to adopt masculine or feminine identities accordingly, through their toys, clothes, and even games. He also emphasizes that these gender identities are reinforced by the adults by rewards and sanctions (or punishments) (Davies, 2002). Therefore, this model of gender pedagogy that these pre-schools adopt, aim to counter and prevent the reinforcement and reproduction of gender roles.
In my opinion, this is a rather good solution to gender inequality. However, not all societies are suitable to adopt this model, as gender inequality is a result of several factors, from religion to the nature of the societies. Furthermore, its effectiveness can be undermined by the ubiquity of the media that reinforces gender roles.
Yet this model does have its merits. Considering some of the phenomenas we have covered in this course, such as rape and becoming a male or female, I seek to apply this model into these circumstances.
I believe that if children were raised in an environment where they did not learn gender roles and where these children received equal treatments and expectations from the adults, their definitions of masculinity and feminity would differ from ours. Therefore, the meanings they attach to their actions would also be different. Taking this into consideration and with reference to the reading on rape (Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke), sexual violence due to the motivations for male dominance would decrease, or would not exist (but this is unlikely to happen due to the incredible amount of information one can access to via the internet and the media). Essentially, males would not engage in activities that will "boost" their masculinity, and the same applies to females.
Furthermore, this environment also encourages children to reach their full potential. They would not feel like they have to conform to various characteristics of their gender roles such as “boys are good at numbers while girls are not”, “boys tend to be rowdier while girls are more obedient”. Therefore, when girls do not do as well as boys in math, adults turn to these stereotypes to explain this trend (Davies, 2002). In this environment, these children are able to progress freely without pressures from their peers or adults; they would not feel the pressures to hold back their talents just to conform to certain expectations of the society. Thus, the society is able to benefit from these individuals when they join the workforce. The results of gender pedagogy is after all having boys that are "unusually calm, with well-developed language skills and social competence” while the girls were “more secure and could make themselves heard”. These are results that are beneficial to both the individual and the society.
All in all, I am confident that this system can help tackle the problem of gender inequality. Mostly because these children will grow up with the perspective that they are not weaker nor stronger than the opposite sex; what a male can do, a female can do too; the same goes for what a female can do, a male can do too. However, to completely solve the problem of gender inequality, I believe that every aspect of the society has to be involved: from families to corporations and governments. Their combined efforts will eventually result in a creation of a new cultural script for the individuals to follow, one that is equal for both men and women.
References
Davies, Brownyn (2002) "Becoming Male or Female" In: Gender: A Sociological Reader. London: Routledge.
Watson-Franke, Maria-Barbara (2002) "A World in which Women Move Freely without Fear of Men: An Anthropological Perspective on Rape," Women's Studies International Forum 25(6): 599-606
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