Gender-neutral – what does it mean?
If I was to judge by social media I’d think it was about a lot of jerky-kneed people worrying about toilets or getting hysterical about boys not being boys, girls not being girls and all that stuff.
But, social media is not the best place to learn about anything – it’s too easy to fall down the rabbit-holes of hatred.
So when I was sent a link to an article about facilitating gender neutrality in education I was fascinated. The article features a friend of a friend, Elis Storesund.
Elis is a gender expert and lives in Sweden. You can find out more about her work here.
Science people still debate and contradict each other’s studies about whether gender differences stem from biology or culture and I’m not surprised.
How can you decide this question when the truth is that we are inundated with images and portrayals of male and females behaving according to very specific gender roles?
Don’t believe me? Watch a few pop videos – see many male artists lying practically naked on beds of feathers/balloons, mouths dropping open while simulating masturbation?
No… me neither.
Unless culture changes the biology/culture question will remain unanswerable.
Sweden is one place where they’re actively trying to change the culture and they’re doing this through gender-neutral preschools and I recommend you read this New York Times article about these schools.
Elis Storesund is part of this change.
Her role is to create gender equality in preschools.
She works alongside teachers and children to provide provocative and creative gender-neutral learning experiences.
In many Swedish preschools, teachers call the kids ‘friends’ or refer to them by name rather than ‘boys and girls.’
In 2012 a gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ was introduced and quickly absorbed into Swedish culture.
In this article, Elis is called into a classroom full of toddlers. As newcomers to preschool, the children had split themselves among ‘traditional gender lines.’
The boys were shouty and refused to paint and the girls whimpered and want to be picked up.
To help provide a gender-neutral environment the classroom was cleared of cars and dolls and the boys were placed in control of the play kitchen while the girls practised shouting ‘no!’
Not everyone in Sweden agrees with these methods but as Elin Gerdin, who was raised with these methods says, ‘It is not easy to change a whole society.’
TURNING BOYS INTO GIRLS
Reading this reminded me of a time when a relative found her son playing with my daughter’s play cooker.
She pulled him away from it and angrily handed him a (toy) gun saying ‘no…. you don’t want to turn into a girl.’
There was real fear though.
Do parents think it’s possible to alter the sexuality of a child with a toy?
Looking even further back to my own childhood I know I was brought up by parents with fixed ideas of girls and boys.
That would have been completely average back then.
I got typical ‘girls’ toys like dolls while my brother got soldiers and guns.
As for saying no – well, let’s say that wouldn’t happen.
I remember resenting things my brother had that I didn’t have – not his toys but his freedoms.
BE QUIET
Like the little girl mentioned in the article, I felt a necessity to not take up space. I can remember being very anxious about staying neat and clean but most of all I had to be quiet.
Still, I don’t regret my dolls for a second and I can’t speak for other women my age but I didn’t just sit around combing their hair.
My dolls – like many dolls, were actors in my plays. My plays took place wherever I chose and my actors could do anything I wanted.
Occasionally I borrowed a soldier or two from my brother to fill a male role. But that didn’t happen often – despite the lack of gender neutrality of those times I got to direct my own plays and I didn’t assign many male roles.
This was a long time ago. Have things changed?
All the best
Grace
READ MORE FROM GRACE M. JOLLIFFE
THE SUNSHINE GIRL
Secrets, lies and laughter.
Raining bills.
A dead end job.
Josie knows she’s trapped.
A smiling stranger brings hope.
She doesn’t listen when friends say he’s hiding something.
Instead, she brings him home to prove them wrong.
This is her big mistake because his secret could destroy her family.
The Sunshine Girl is a funny and nostalgic look back at 1970s Liverpool.
Get The Sunshine Girl from Amazon.com
Get The Sunshine Girl from Amazon.co.uk.
SWEET LITTLE THINGS
She’s all alone and scared.
Pat was always desperately shy, always scared of doing the wrong thing.
Sixteen-year-old single mother, Mildie, is just as lonely as Pat.
Racial prejudice has turned her family against her – she is white, and her little boy’s father was black.
They both need a friend, but Pat makes a terrible mistake.
She tries to give the little boy a present. It’s just a little thing… she got it free with a pot of jam and can’t understand why Mildie’s so very upset.
Now Mildie thinks Pat’s just like all the rest – the ones that call her names.
The misunderstanding drives a wedge between them, and it’s up to Pat to face her fears.
Can she find the words to make it right?
You’ll laugh and cry at this nostalgic and uplifting look back into a gritty 1970s world.
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