Girls don’t play with superheroes!…How to raise kids who

Have you heard this riddle before…

“A father and son get in a car crash and are rushed to the hospital.

The father dies.

The boy is taken to the operating room and the surgeon says:

“I can’t operate on this boy, because he’s my son.” 

Miller, et al

How is that possible?

I used this riddle when I opened an Equality and Diversity workshop for teachers a few years back.

90% of the all female audience just couldn’t work it out. Despite knowing that we were there to discuss equality they did not register that the doctor was a woman.

But, why?

It’s important to recognise that it is human nature to generalise.

Even the most open-minded of us do it.

If we want to effectively challenge inequalities then this is something that we need to accept.

We all use stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it.

We have met the enemy of equality, and the enemy is us.

Psychology Today

 

Why do we stereotype?

Understanding why we generalise is the first step to ensuring that we don’t prejudice by acting upon our initial assumptions.

There is a difference between generalisations and stereotypes…although I think in many cases the lines are pretty blurry!

Generalisations are useful. They save our brain having to work out every situation that we come across in our daily lives over and over again.

We can thank our ability to generalise for knowing not to ask a six-year-old to push our broken down car up the hill or ask our Granny to lift a heavy box up the stairs.

These generalisations are usually helpful as they can save us a lot of time.

If you think of stereotypes as a flaw in our mind, some sort of pathology or cruelty, you actually won’t understand them very well. You won’t know how to combat them.

Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at Yale University.

The trouble is that these generalisations about groups of people usually lead us to stereotype.

Stereotypes are bad because they fix people into limiting categories.

Once we’ve formed our stereotypes then it’s difficult to change our judgements of people.

 

When stereotypes cause prejudice…

You’d have to live under a rock to deny that there are some pretty damaging stereotypes floating around our society.

Little girls and boys growing up in this world are bombarded with messages about the women and men they should aspire to be.

I just had a flick through a gift catalogue…

Girls with pink prams and makeup sets.

Boys with wrestlers and monster trucks.

On the surface it can all seem pretty harmless but it’s anything but.

TV and films also confirm many of these distorted ideas.

Girls aren’t lead characters and are definitely not the ones to call if you’re in trouble.

Girls obsess over their appearance and talk about boys and make-up a lot.

Boys have to be strong, dominant and aggressive. They definitely don’t cry.

Boys are mocked for being less capable parents, useless at running a household and generally just obsessed with women.

So, our kids are looking at these books, watching these shows and coming to their own conclusions as young as age 2.

The impact these stereotypes are having on our society is frightening.

The impact it has on our girls…

81% of women reported having experience sexual harassment at the point in their life.

and our boys…

Boys engage in and are the victims of physical violence to a much greater extent than girls; they die more frequently from unintentional injuries, are more prone to substance abuse and suicide; and as adults their life expectancy is shorter than that of women.” The Guardian.

OK so we probably can’t blame all these issues on Gaston harassing Belle in Beauty and the Beast…but it’s not helping.

The attitude of “boys will be boys“, “she was asking for it“, “you hit like a girl” has got to go!

As parents there is a lot that we can do to challenge the generalisations our young children form early on and stop them thinking that stereotyping is OK.

 

So, what can we do about it?

Shut off the TV?

Burn the books?

Start calling each other names?

As a mother raising two beautiful little boys, I am always conscious of the messages they are receiving about the world. How they are making sense of things.

We’ve always let our boys play with whatever toys they want. Our youngest’s favourite toys are a blue motorbike and pink baby doll that sits in a pull-along horse.

So, when my three-year old pipes up one morning “Girls don’t play superheroes” I admit that I was initially a little surprised. 

I reminded myself that he was just making sense of the world around him and used it as an opportunity to challenge a stereotype that he’d formed from who knows where.

 

Talking about stereotypes with young kids…

So, here’s what we do…

1. We don’t generalise…either positively or negatively. Instead we use specific language rather than talking about social groups.

So, that morning our conversation went something like this:

Three year old - “Girls don’t play superheroes.”

Me “Mmm, who are you thinking about?” Who do you know that doesn’t play superheroes?”

Three year old - “Suzie said she doesn’t like them.”

Me ‘Oh yes, Suzie said she doesn’t like superheroes you’re right. Jenny loves Barman though doesn’t she?”

This response shows him that ‘Suzie’ is an individual rather than just another ‘girl’ who will have similar thoughts and feelings to all other girls.

Research indicates that this method is effective:

Sometimes children speak this way because they are testing out whether drawing a generalization is sensible. By bringing them back to the specific incident, we communicate to them that it is not. Combating Stereotypes

It’s so so tempting to reply something like “girls can play anything they want to play” but in the long run it’s better to be more specific.

2. We’re aware of the subtle (and not so subtle) messages they’re receiving.

There are some pretty cringe worthy TV programs aimed at kids. Some are pretty in your face about it like Smurfette in The Smurfs while others are a little more subtle…think Paw Patrol.

I’ve put together a post about our favourite TV shows with positive role models for young kids…they are educational and have positive male and female characters. 

Talk to your children about what they are watching and help them to question what they are seeing.

3. We surround our children with as many positive role models as possible…both MALE and FEMALE. 

Personally, I think it’s a shame to go down the route of “step aside men, it’s our turn to rule the world now”.

I kind of understand where it’s coming from and I can see it empowering some people but I don’t think it will help us to overcome prejudices in the long run.

 

Surrounding our children with positive role models goes a long way in teaching them about what they can achieve in life and how they should treat people.

Books are also a great way of introducing kids to different ideas and possibilities. There are some beautiful books available that look at the lives of both inspirational women and men.

We love the empowering series “Little People, BIG DREAMS”. They explore the lives of extraordinary people and are available in board-book format so are great for babies and toddlers.

4. Body autonomy

We don’t force kissing or hugging and my most used phrase with our two toddlers at the moment is “he said no so we don’t touch his body”.

I think it’s really important to teach our children that no means no.

How awesome would it be if all the little girls and little boys could grow up celebrating their individualities. 

Grow up knowing that their gender didn’t dictate their hopes and dreams.

Grow up knowing that they were free to follow their own paths.

So, what do you think?

Works Cited

Miller, Sally, et al. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/gender-bias-riddles.

Rhodes, Marjorie. The Conversation, The Conversation, 1 June 2018, theconversation.com/combatting-stereotypes-how-to-talk-to-your-children-71929.

Paul, Annie. Where Bias Begins, www.psychologytoday.com/intl/articles/199805/where-bias-begins-the-truth-about-stereotypes

“Challenging gender stereotypes in children”.