How I perpetuate gender stereotypes with the Sprog’s friends

I’ve already talked about how I am shocked by the gender stereotypes already impacting on my daughter. And she’s only 3!

I wonder how much of this is from what she sees on TV. I asked her the other day who her favourite characters were in different TV programmes. Here are her responses:

PJ Masks – Amaya / Owlette (the girl)
Go Jetters – Xuli (the girl)
Paw Patrol – Skye (the girl… er ok, the female dog)

It frustrates me that all of her favourite animated icons are female but then again I suppose, as a girl, that’s what she relates to.

On a separate note, why do all these cartoon characters specialise in flying? Are they saying that women can fly vehicles better than men. Or, I wonder if they are given the role of pilot as a way of saying, ‘Yeah, they’re important but they couldn’t fight on the front line.’

I’d love my daughter to embrace all things, whether they are aimed at boys or girls, and know that perceived gender stereotypes are not a thing.

However, when it came to her friends, I completely failed in this respect.

Unfortunately I’ve discovered that I’m a massive sexist.

So the story starts with an invitation. Specifically an invitation to a four year-old birthday party. Even more specifically still, the invitation was for a party for two children in the Sprog’s class, a boy and a girl.

The wife tasked me with finding appropriate cards and gifts for the two party people so the Sprog and I scootered off to Tesco to have a peruse on what we could get for about a fiver.

Is that a reasonable amount for a four year-old’s birthday present? I don’t know, but it’s not like we’re made of money. There are 19 other kids in her class. If I bought a £5 present for each of them that would be… ummm… carry the one… £145!

(Who am I kidding? I definitely did not just do that sum in my head!)

Anyway, we were stood in Tesco in front of a bewildering selection of toys and cards. Long story short we chose the following gifts for the two birthday buddies.

Now you may be looking at this and thinking, ‘That’s a perfectly reasonable selection of presents, Jon. Why would you say it’s sexist?’

Well, what am I saying by giving those gifts? Only boys are interested in Batman? Only girls like pink sparkling dragons? Boys like physical toys like cars? Girls like mental activities like colouring?

It’s no wonder there is such a disparity between boys’ and girls’ achievement in school when, from such an early age, they are taught that boys ‘do’ and girls ‘think’.

Maybe this is the reason we have so few female role models on the adventure scene (though thankfully this is slowly changing). Boys go and ‘do’ risk-taking, carefree, challenging, death-defying adventures. Girls stay and ‘think’ about those risks, about being judged, about failure, about dying.

I’m not saying this is true for everyone, I’m just saying this might be the message that we are unintentionally giving our kids ALL the time.

So I wrapped the presents, pink wrapping for the girl, blue wrapping for the boy, and was just about to write the cards when I had a sudden thought. How bad would it be if I just switched the names, and gave the Batman card with the toy cars to the girl and the Moana card with the cuddly pink dragon to the boy?

I was so close to doing it when I had the sudden thought. This is her first ever birthday party with kids she could potentially be in the same class as for the next 7 years. Best not to be branded as the weirdo dad on the first outing!

(Also, my wife would have probably killed me!!)

So instead I labelled them as I’d originally planned and pootled off to the party with the Sprog and the wife in tow.

It was only when we were sat chatting to the other parents, the kids forgotten about as they clambered round the indoor soft play area like a wild pack of monkeys, that I reconsidered my choices.

Because, you see, the boy whose party it was is, apparently, completely bonkers about Moana. Absolutely obsessed to the point where his mum had been up ‘til the early hours of the morning icing an incredible sculptural representation of Moana and Maui riding a chocolate finger raft across a sea of blue frosting. He was Moana mad.

Even though I thought I was doing the right (read 'stereotypically sexist') thing, I’d actually ended up giving a Batman card to a lad who didn’t give a monkey’s left coconut about the Caped Crusader. He was much happier quoting Disney princess song lyrics.

He was also wearing a rainbow coloured jumper but I’m not going to read too much into that!

So, the moral of the story. Don’t think of your child’s friend as a ‘girl’ or a ‘boy’. Each of them is a unique child in their own individual right. They are just learning about the world and don’t need to fit into some arbitary box that society deems they should go in based on what genetalia they are born with. If we tell them with our actions and our gifts, whether intentionally or inadvertently, that they should conform in one way or another we are just as bad as any misogynistic bastard in this world.

What am I going to do next time? I’m going to drop the parents a text and find out what the kid is into before I even venture anywhere near a toy shop.

Even better, we shouldn’t buy them a toy at all. But then that is a whole ‘nother conversation…