by Laura Bates
These issues really affect the way we experience and consume media and entertainment. A stereotypical representation or a lack of diversity can act as a slap in the face that shakes a viewer out of the fictional world with the sharp realization: ‘Oh, this wasn’t meant for me.’ You’re left with the option of either tuning out, or guiltily continuing, with the uncomfortable feeling of squashing down your beliefs and personal experience, as The Onion perfectly captured with its headline: ‘Woman takes short half-hour break from being feminist to enjoy TV show’. And the lasting impact is likely to run even deeper – a 2012 US study published in the journal Communications Research found that watching more television generally lowered children’s self-esteem . . . with the notable exception of white boys.
Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that a lack of media diversity doesn’t even make good business sense. A recent study of diversity in Hollywood found that shows with diverse casts make more money and net bigger audiences. Yet the argument that such programmes are ‘niche’ or not ‘mainstream’ persists. Women make up more than half of TV audiences and the older we are, the more we watch, so why are women, and particularly older women, so under-represented on screen?
While the end product is a problem, it often originates from the lack of representation within media and entertainment industries themselves. But the excuse that there just aren’t enough capable candidates available wears pretty thin when you look at the stable of work showcased by blogs such as Media Diversified, the success of circus company Extraordinary Bodies (which features D/deaf, disabled and non-disabled artists working equally together) or the track record of Madani Younis, the artistic director of the Bush Theatre, who presided over a year in which half of all stage shows were written by black and minority ethnic playwrights and half the main stage directors were women. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Originally published 13 November 2014
YOUNG CHILDREN MUST BE PROTECTED FROM INGRAINED GENDER STEREOTYPES
Scrolling through my Twitter timeline this week, one particular tweet, with an image attached, immediately jumped out at me. A parent had shared a snapshot of her 6-year-old child’s homework – a worksheet asking pupils to research a scientist or inventor. So far, so normal. But the question, in jaunty Comic Sans, read: ‘Who was he? Who was the person you have chosen to look at? How old were they when they began inventing? Did they have a wife and family?’
The frustration of the parent, who appealed to other Twitter users for suggestions of female inventors, would be dismissed by many as an overreaction to a carelessly worded question. But she is far from alone. Parents share similar homework woes with the Everyday Sexism website and Twitter account with startling regularity.
One referenced their son’s physics homework, which used examples of men pushing vans, lifting weights, climbing trees and shooting arrows. The sole female example was a woman pushing a pram. Another parent described an assignment where children were directed to use a particular biographical research website, only to find that, of the twenty-one historical personalities listed, just two were women. One person’s son had even been asked to compare the qualities of a ‘good wife’ from biblical to modern times (with no similar exercise discussing the merits of husbands). Numerous questions involved men doing active, strong tasks such as driving or playing sport, while women cooked, cleaned or, in one particularly bizarre example, simply ‘sat on a rug’.
To those who cry ‘overreaction’, a new study published this month by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that gender bias at primary school may in fact have long-term implications for pupils. The study saw several groups of students take two exams, one marked blind by outside examiners, the other marked by teachers who knew the students’ names and gender. In maths, girls outperformed boys on the anonymously marked exam, but boys outperformed girls when assessed by teachers who knew their names, suggesting that they may have overestimated the boys’ abilities and underestimated the girls. Tracking the pupils to the end of high school, the researchers found that boys who were given encouragement as youngsters not only performed better later on, but were also more likely to take advanced courses involving maths, compared with girls who had been discouraged. They concluded: ‘Teachers’ over-assessment of boys in a specific subject has a positive and significant effect on boys’ overall future achievements in that subject, while having a significant negative effect on girls.’
Of course, many teachers actively encourage girls into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. But gender stereotypes are not only passed on at school. They also proliferate in the advertising, television, books, magazines and conversations that children are exposed to from a young age. In the strictly segregated aisles of many toy stores, blue shelves mark off chemistry sets, dinosaurs and building tools as the domain of boys, while girls are left holding the (plastic) baby.
Each individual incident is easily dismissed as harmless. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with an individual child choosing to identify with any of these roles. But it’s the assumptions made for them that matter. Young children are not always equipped, as most adults are, with the critical tools to analyse and probe information – what is presented as fact is often absorbed without question. This might seem extreme, until, as I have, you visit a variety of primary school classrooms and start to realize just how many under-tens genuinely think that girls simply aren’t allowed to be footballers or doctors or lawyers. Ask your nearest small friend about these matters – you may be unpleasantly surprised.
The silver lining is that change is happening. Several toy stores have abandoned gender segregation, partly thanks to the efforts of campaigns such as Pinkstinks and Let Toys Be Toys. The parent whose tweet first caught my eye later reported an excellent response and apology from the school. There is hope, too, in the reactions of children themselves. According to one Everyday Sexism Project entry, a girl who faced her first experience of street harassment aged eight, when a passing man told her the muffin she was eating would ‘go straight to [her] hips’, patiently drew on her biology knowledge to explain: ‘No, it won’t, it has to go to my stomach first.’ One mother described how, asked to complete a drawing for homework showing ‘Mummy in the kitchen’, her 7-year-old son added his daddy to the picture, doing the washing up.
It’s refreshing to see how ridiculous sexism can look through children’s eyes. If we could only restrain ourselves from passing our own inherited assumptions on to them.
Originally published 23 February 2015
THE POCKET MONEY GAP – AND TEN OTHER WAYS GIRLS ARE TAUGHT THEY’RE WORTH LESS
A new study has revealed that the gender pay gap begins as early as childhood, with boys on average receiving 20 per cent more pocket money than girls. While the disparity, which amounts to £2.20 per week, might not seem calamitous, the message behind it matters.
When we treat our children differently from such a young age, we send them powerful indicators about their worth, their strengths and what will be expected of them in adulthood. Taken together, these influences can have a major impact. Here are ten other ways in which girls are taught to devalue themselves.
1. Clothes
It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the problem starts at birth. A recent viral image of two Babygros hanging side by side in a shop revealed dramatically different messaging. ‘I’m super’ was emblazoned across the blue version, while its purple counterpart read: ‘I hate my thighs.’ As they grow into toddlerhood, boys’ clothes tend to be more robust and functional, with pockets and sturdy fabrics, whereas girls’ attire is more flimsy and designed with a focus on appearance, not activity.
2. Toys
From the soft bunnies and dollies thrust into little girls’ arms to the robots and building sets more commonly offered to boys, we subtly teach girls that they are expected to be passive, pretty and nurturing, while boys are given the opportunity to explore and learn. Girls are presented
with pastel perfume-making kits instead of engineering sets, and boys are also taught by gendered and heteronormative toys from a young age that they aren’t expected to take part in domestic activities like cooking, cleaning and childcare.
3. Books
Despite recent fantastic campaigns to improve the diversity of children’s literature, many early-years books still present readers with stories about a nice, white daddy who goes out to work while the nice, white mummy stays at home baking cakes and looks after the children. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with such a storyline, but if it’s the only one that children see over and over, it creates a sense of what’s ‘normal’ or ‘expected’ before they have even begun to consider their own future life choices. Not to mention the rather less subtle impact of books for girls with titles like How to Be Gorgeous, with the boys’ equivalent, How to Be Clever.
4. Television
Research from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which analysed 275 American children’s TV shows, revealed that just 30 per cent of characters and 20 per cent of narrators were female. So we subtly let children know that boys are the main event and girls are more often observers or window dressing. Even more important, the research demonstrated how content can send subtle messages to children about their future potential: only a quarter of employed characters in the show were female, normalizing the idea that men are expected to be the main breadwinners.
5. Advertising
A 2012 Munch Bunch advert showed a little girl tottering around in red high heels and jewellery and a little boy lifting a broom above his head with the slogan: ‘Grown up like Mummy and strong like Daddy’. It was the perfect example of how advertising can direct children’s aspirations and teach them how they should expect to be valued in later life.
6. Party themes
Even children’s parties convey a clear message about the sort of roles we expect girls and boys to inhabit, with princess and fairy party bags abounding in the pink aisle, while more adventurous pirate and superhero themes suggest boys are active and in control.
7. Behaviour
The influences aren’t all external: it is also common for parents and other adults to socialize children from a young age to submit to certain gender stereotypes. Boys are proudly described as ‘boisterous’, as if it’s a badge of male honour, while girls are more likely to be shushed, told to be still and quiet, and scolded for getting clothes dirty.
8. Fancy dress
One story that always sticks in my mind is from a mother whose toddler daughter grabbed a toy stethoscope at a playgroup, prompting another parent to swoop in immediately and cry: ‘Ooh, you’re going to be a nurse!’ Nursing is a brilliant career option, of course, but would the same reaction have been elicited by a 2-year-old boy? When children are given opportunities to mimic future career options, particularly with fancy dress, girls are routinely offered options like nurse or beautician costumes, while little boys choose between jobs such as policeman, fireman and doctor.
9. Compliments
How often do we praise little girls for being pretty, sweet or beautiful, and little boys for being smart, strong or clever? These might seem like benign and well-meaning words, but repeated over and over again they start to ingrain the notion that girls are judged on their appearance and beauty, while boys’ action and intelligence matter more. Of course, the same is also true of insults – few little girls reach their teen years without hearing someone ridiculed at least once for doing something ‘like a girl’.
10. Money management
An early gender pay gap wasn’t the only finding to emerge from the research into children’s pocket money. It also revealed that parents are less likely to allow girls control of their own finances. While boys are given regular payments, teaching them to manage their money, parents are more likely to hold on to girls’ money until it is needed, or to buy items on their behalf. So children learn from childhood that men control the purse strings and women are less trusted with money and maths.
Of course, none of these issues alone is a disaster. No single parental choice or TV show is to blame for socializing children into stereotypical gender roles. Nor is anybody suggesting that the answer is to force girls to dress only in blue or to provide nothing but dolls to every boy. But taken together, the impact is very real. So giving our children the widest possible range of choices, doing away with unnecessary gender segregation in marketing and improving the diversity of kids’ entertainment could have a much bigger impact on their futures than you might think.
Originally published 24 January 2017
LITTLE GIRLS DESERVE BETTER THAN TO BE TOLD TO MAKE THEMSELVES SEXY
This week we have seen a toy cleaning set marketed by Sports Direct with the label ‘It’s Girl Stuff!’ A few days later, news emerged that Harrods was offering little girls the chance to be turned into Disney princesses for just £1,000 a pop (or £100 for the princess on a budget). Then an Everyday Sexism Twitter follower alerted me to a website offering ‘girly’ games from Bratz Makeover to Hollywood Beauty Secrets.
The Harrods Disney experience, complete with sparkly makeover and deluxe princess dress, is aimed at girls aged three to twelve and culminates in an oath where princesses vow, among other things, to be ‘kind and gentle’. Perhaps not the best advice for future boardroom battles or climbing the steely managerial ladder but, of course, those aren’t the sort of roles one would expect a princess to aspire to. Girls lucky enough to be treated to the full £1,000 royal experience come away with a case full of make-up too – just the thing for the under-twelves!
Meanwhile, over on the Friv website (which seems to be aimed at a similar age range, if games such as Where’s My Blankie? and Girl Fashion are anything to go by), young gamers are treated to a veritable smörgåsbord of options. But look closer, and almost every game, from Selena’s Date Rush to Back to School Makeover, involves exactly the same steps. Players are presented with a cartoonish waif with a head nearly triple the width of her waist and charged with using ‘beauty products’ to make her presentable, from clearing spots to plucking brows to applying make-up. Whether the goal is a hot date or the first day back at school, the message remains the same: conforming to beauty standards and slathering on products is the number one priority for girls everywhere.
Thanks to games such as Dream Date Dress Up (‘You have a dream date today . . . wow him with your cuteness’), it’s pretty clear that making yourself beautiful to attract a boy is the ultimate goal. The instructions to Selena’s Date Rush are simple: ‘When Justin comes to pick her up in the morning, she just woke up with no make-up! Please help her complete her make-up before Justin finds out!’ Because heaven forbid her boyfriend should realize she doesn’t sleep in full slap.
Sadly, these themes are by no means isolated to a single website – they are everywhere, from the website for tween sensation Monster High to Nickelodeon’s own site. The latter includes such gems as iKissed Him First (‘Carly vs Sam in a battle for a boy’), Big Time Crush Quiz (‘Find out which Big Time Rush guy is right for you!’) and Makeover Magic. On the Monster High site you can meet characters including Clawdeen Wolf – a ‘fierce fashionista’ whose hobbies are ‘shopping and flirting with boys’ but whose time is tragically consumed with removing leg hair: ‘Plucking and shaving is definitely a full-time job.’ It would almost be funny if it didn’t make you want to weep.
And it doesn’t end there. Over on the website of TOPModel Magazine, another big hit with the tween age range, girls learn that ‘Mascara alone is not enough! You need more to achieve a radiant look!’ There are even tips to get rid of cellulite by ‘pinching yourself with a twisting hand movement’. Because they might as well learn young that inflicting pain on oneself in the name of beauty is a woman’s lot.
So to return to those who think that making a fuss about these things is an overreaction, it is only when you look at all of this stuff together that you start to realize the immense impact it might be having on young
girls. Everywhere they turn they are bombarded with the idea that their looks are everything, that their place is in the home, that pleasing the male gaze is paramount and that they are riddled with imperfections that need to be ‘fixed’. As if the constant bombardment of hyper-sexualized, airbrushed media images of women wasn’t enough to get the message across.
And things are only getting worse. One mother told me: ‘My 7-year-old daughter told me “Barbie is fat” when she compared it to her Monster High doll.’ Another said her 5-year-old daughter had asked to be turned into a boy so she could go into space. A 15-year-old girl wrote to us to say that ‘I always feel like if I don’t look a certain way, if boys don’t think I’m “sexy” or “hot”, then I’ve failed and it doesn’t even matter if I am a doctor or writer, I’ll still feel like nothing . . .’
So that’s the answer for those people who want to know why we’re getting our knickers in a twist – why we’re getting so worked up about this. Because as long as our little girls receive the message, everywhere they look, that hiding their ‘imperfections’ and making themselves sexy is the sum total of their value, we are failing them. Frankly they deserve better.
Originally published 10 January 2014
TEN THINGS FEMALE STUDENTS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH AT UNIVERSITY
A string of headlines about misogynistic behaviour has become a depressingly recognizable sign that the new university year has begun. For many female students, those headlines represent the tip of the iceberg. Should young women really still have to brave this barrage of sexist ‘banter’ in the process of getting a degree?