I was just reading an article about a preschool
in Sweden that takes big efforts to gender
neutralize everything.
The idea behind it seems to be to give
children the opportunity to just be
themselves without feeling "compelled"
(my word) to be the expectations of
their gender.
While it seems to me that we certainly
have room for improvement, it would
also seem to make sense to identify
with one's gender to see, if nothing
else, how it "fits."
Perhaps a girl will identify more with
the boys, and a boy will identify more
with the girls, but perhaps it would
be better to have a more informed and
tolerant world that allows for self
discovery, and the forging of a path
that works for the individual rather
than one that society deems appropriate.
We seem to have enough trouble as it is
sometimes figuring out who and how we
are. Hopefully those whose children
are enrolled are helping them to distinguish
which choices seem to fit for them within
the gender roles without negating their
own, or the other, gender.
We have genders. There is no getting
around it, and it seems to me that a
avoidance of it (if that is what this
is) is no more helpful than an avoidance
of anything else.
It seems geared to help kids, but I can't
help but wonder if it is potentially misguided
as it would seem it is the adults who have
the gender bias issues, not the kids.
I would be curious to know your thoughts.
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Yes, I do think they may haven taken it too far. While challenging gender stereotypes can only be a good thing (at least in my view ;)), this seems more like an attempt to force an artificial gender-less view of the world on the kids.
ReplyDeleteI think much could be gained by acknowledging gender differences, but downplaying their importance. Even if we could say things like "on average, women tend to be more caring than men", this quickly becomes irrelevant when interacting with individuals. I know men and woman that are equally caring, and men and women that are just as uncaring. The variance between the individuals of each gender is greater than the variance between the genders themselves, at least in my experience.
Tenker, I suspect if people were willing to be more objective about their assessments, they would likely agree with you. People vary, but we somehow always try to categorize and label the variances. It may help sometimes, but it can also be a hindrance and sometimes cause a reaction that is as unhelpful as the behaviors that come from the judgments of the labels.
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