Yasmeen Ismail challenges gender stereotypes we often see in products marketed to children - what is deemed an acceptable way for girls to behave, and what girls should like to spend their time doing.
Yasmeen Ismail
Challenging gender stereotypes
Posted on: Thu 13-Aug-15 15:22:36
(127 comments )
When I was little I had a secondhand BMX bike. I was happy that I knew how to ride it without stabilisers (my sister taught me), and I relished in my independence. The boy down the road teased me for riding a "Boy’s bike." I remember puzzling over what exactly made it for boys. I was riding it, surely that was okay?
True to form I knocked at the front door of his house and told on him. I told his mother that her son was being mean and called my bike a 'boy’s bike'. She conceded and told me that as punishment he wouldn’t get his Kinder Surprise "this week". I suddenly had more pressing injustices to worry about... "He gets a Kinder Surprise every week!"
When my sister was little she had short hair and glasses. She wore dungarees and she was teased for being 'like a boy'. She begged our mother to let her grow her hair long, but (for reasons unknown) she wasn’t allowed. She put up with the cruelty of the other children, but it was hard on her. She is a Computer Scientist and has four children herself now. She is a wonderful mother.
Her two eldest are my niece and nephew. My nephew seems to think the sky is the limit when it comes to imagining his future. He would like to be a scientist, an explorer or an engineer. It changes daily, and he knows that he can do anything.
Why are we telling them that they are different and that their reading material has to be segregated?
My niece would like to be a princess. I don't mind that she wants to be a princess. It sounds great; A castle, jewels, adoration, dresses, carriages and horses. I don't mind that she wants to wear pink, and I don't mind that she wants sparkles on everything. The worry that I have is that the only reason she wants to be a princess and in pink might be because that is the main option that is presented to her.
This might not be true, but when I walk around and see aspiring princesses everywhere, I start to wonder where it's all come from. If I look to the bookstores, I can't move for books 'for girls' and books 'for boys'. Why are we telling them that they are different and that their reading material has to be segregated?
And the funny thing is, is that many "boys" books proffer achievable careers in such things as construction, engineering, and medicine, whilst there is an overwhelming amount of books for girls very focused on being a princess. But being a princess, you can only be born or marry into that.
So what is the message? Marry well? And what does that say about my niece? She can focus on dressing, acting and looking a certain way in order to meet her future prince (because, believe me, she hasn't been born into royalty). It would seem to me that her quest started when she received her first princess book. I love my niece. I am fiercely protective of her, but I need books to help me give her more options; to tell her that she is young and that the world is her oyster, and that she can do anything she wants. I don't want her to limit herself. I don't want her to say, "I don't want to be an engineer because that's for boys."
I want her to be happy and I don't want her to feel that she can't do everything she wants to do. I have full confidence that she will be fine in the future. Her parents are wonderful and will care for her and help her to be strong and smart and ambitious. I have no doubt that she will be happy, but I can't say the same for every little girl. If she chooses to be a princess then so be it, as long as that's HER choice.
Yasmeen Ismail's picture book I’m a Girl is out now and available from Amazon. Post your thoughts on the thread to win one of 10 copies.
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