No Better Sex

How many times have  you heard it: “boys chase the girls!” or “girls have cooties!”?

Gender, like race, is a trait that differentiates and therefore, divides. Fortunately, we have control as to how much it divides by how much influence it has on our children’s perception of themselves and others? Do there need to be so many “others” or can we give our children the gift of connectedness? Below I’ve selected chunks of an insightful article, Undermining the “Division” Between the Sexes, written by the Head of School at Montessori Children’s House of Durham.

Undermining the “Division” Between the Sexes

From time to time, we hear various games being proposed by the children on the playground, ones that we wish would go away. Like viruses, however, they seem to be passed down and infect our community year after year. One of my least favorite is “The boys chase the girls!”

On the one hand, it seems natural that this game, and its flirtatious variants in the older children, crops up most regularly in the age groups that are undergoing a surge of development in gender identification.  On the other hand, I find it amazing that our society is so tolerant of a situation that we would find horrifying if translated into equivalent terms with other identification groups. Would we allow our children to even suggest a game called, “The whites chase the blacks!” or “the Christians chase the Jews!”?

The divisive messages separating girls and boys are pervasive and insidious in our American culture. Most of us were inculcated with them ourselves and don’t even know we are perpetuating them. These messages harm both boys’ and girls’ images of themselves and others.

To promote gender neutrality- DO’s

1. Do encourage children of both genders to work together and play together.
2. Do celebrate friendships between sexes in the same ways other friendships are celebrated.
3. Do emphasize that masculinity and femininity are part of what you are, not what you do.
4. Do teach all children the same set of basic skills (laundry, dishes, balancing a checkbook, changing a tire).
5. Do provide images, stories, and examples of both men and women doing all kinds of work, together and separately.
6. Do ask both boys and girls what they want to be when they grow up and be impartial about all answers.
7. Do let children compete freely and in a healthy, respectful manner. May the best athlete, speller, or pianist win fair and square, boy or girl.
8. Do treat a boy who’s been beaten by a girl exactly the same way as if he’d been beaten by a boy, and vice versa.

To promote gender neutrality- DONT’s

1. Don’t separate boys and girls
2. Don’t tease children for being friends: “Billy has a girl-friend!”
3. Don’t push children into sexuality by assuming that male/female relationships are all and only sexual.
4. Don’t say, “Boys don’t do that,” or “Girls don’t do that!”
5. Don’t have “girl’s” and “boy’s” jobs, toys, or activities. Would you have “black” and “white” jobs or toys?
6. Don’t tease a boy for being beaten by a girl.
7. Don’t tell a girl not to know the answer in front of the boys.
8. Don’t encourage as cute, “I hate boys!” or “Girls are yucky.”

Please take a moment to share with us an idea for helping your child be more accepting of others?