Returning to my 4th grade classroom after lunch recess, I expected to pick up a book to begin reading aloud as usual. Instead I saw Scott scrawling the message "Jeremy is a Girl" in huge letters on the chalkboard. Jeremy was curled into a corner with his arms covering his head.
"I assume you are very angry at Jeremy," I said to Scott, "and calling Jeremy a girl is the biggest putdown you can think of." Scott nodded his head "yes." I directed the class to sit in a circle for conversation. "I wonder why calling a boy a girl is the biggest put-down anyone can think of. Could you help me understand that?" I asked. Silence. My first goal was to make my students aware that we constantly absorb gender stereotyping without realizing it. I wrote gender stereotypes across the top of a newsprint pad, drew a line down the middle and put the word boys on one side and girls on the other. "Can you list all the things that boys are supposed to do and all the things girls are supposed to do?" I asked.
It didn't take long for the class to produce a long list. Then we went through the list item by item, and I let the students point out the many exceptions -- for example, "My dad cooks all the meals in our house" or "My mom took a mechanics course, and she knows more about fixing the car than my dad." We pinned our chart in a prominent place, and I asked the students to bring ads to class that exemplified the stereotypes on the list. Together, we discussed the ads and clarified the messages the media sends to boys and girls. Later we watched the video "Beauty and the Beast." I asked students to raise a hand when they recognized a gender stereotype. I stopped the tape each time for a brief discussion. We read the books William's Doll and Oliver Button Is a Sissy and commented on how the two boys' unusual skills and interests were not valued. One boy expressed surprise that he had been unaware of all the gender stereotypes around him. I heard from parents that it was no longer possible to sit quietly and watch TV since their children were interrupting to point out gender stereotypes!
My students are now more aware than the adults around them of the damage that stereotyping causes. Jeremy asked to discuss with the class what to do when his softball coach instructs them by saying, "Do you want to look like a girl or do you want to hold that glove like a man? You guys are playing like a bunch of girls … get tough out there!" Parents and teachers need to stand up to comments that inflict this kind of harm.
We are whole people who need to find a comfortable balance between our masculine and feminine characteristics. Every person, male and female, needs to be both strong and compassionate, self-confident and nurturing, in control and gentle. Teaching students to be aware of gender stereotyping takes time, but the trust and comfort it develops in our class community makes the extra effort worthwhile.
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