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“I Know you Don’t Mean to Be, But You’re Prejudiced in a Thousand Tiny Ways” – A Letter to my Child’s Sexist Headteacher

We ask a contributor to pen a note they would love to send

Anonymous
by Anonymous
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I am a feminist. We can all get drawn into argument about the nuances of that word, but I’m going to use my eight-year-old daughter’s wise-beyond-her-years definition: ‘It means that I can do everything boys can do, and no one should be able to tell me that I can’t. And the same the other way around.’ I talk to my daughter about feminism all the time, and now I want to talk to you. You see, we talk about being ‘woke’, about noticing things – sometimes gradually, and sometimes in a road to Damascus moment – and I can’t help but realise your words and actions in the classroom are often at odds with the significant lessons I’m trying to teach my daughter.

I don’t blame you for this – I’ve been supremely ignorant about these issues, too – but I do want to help. You see, I used to be a primary teacher too (and I’m sure that’s been a thorn in your side at times, and I’m sorry about that). That means I have some insights from both sides of the table, and I’d like to share them with you, if you’ll listen. Firstly, please try not to assume boys and girls should and do play separately. When we recently talked about my daughter’s friendship worries, you went through every female member of the class as a possible playmate – but left the boys out of the conversation. Why?

She confessed to me that she wants to play football, but other people’s expectations are keeping her away. A few words of encouragement from you would do the world of good – she idolises you. We have also been talking about consent a lot at home. When my daughter tells me she gets grabbed or tickled or lifted up at school, and it’s not deemed important enough for teachers to intervene, it’s hard for me to keep reinforcing that her body is under her control.

I know this is really hard to police, and adds one more thing into your busy school life to deal with – but this couldn’t be more important. Without your help telling her that she gets final say over her own body, we are sowing the seeds for some darkly sinister assumptions that feed into rape culture for all genders later on.

Please, please take some time to talk to pupils about their (lack of) right to touch anyone else without their permission, and model it scrupulously. Thank you. My daughter came home from school the other day with a burning question. “Mummy,” she said slowly, “is my school uniform sexist?” There is no honest answer here except an unequivocal yes.

What pupils are wearing at school is being dictated by a binary idea of gender, and has far-reaching effects: it’s a powerful way in which pupils are performing gender.

You have the power to change this, and to show pupils that your expectations of them are not based on their gender – I urge you to take that opportunity.

The tide is turning on uniform, and I couldn’t be happier to see outdated policies that make unnecessary distinctions (and don’t account for trans pupils’ needs) being thrown out. But it takes courage to put your head above the parapet. Lastly, I want to talk about language and implicit bias. “I need two strong boys to carry this table!” I heard you say the other day. Research tells us that teachers use certain adjectives much more often with certain genders and that they call on boys more often in class than girls without knowing it.

Research tells us, too, that your expectations have an enormous effect on pupil achievement. Please help me tell me daughter both explicitly and implicitly that she can be strong and articulate, too. I work in STEM education now and often get asked about the barriers to women in this field and where they come from. It’s a complicated situation, but I know that people like you can have a real effect on these issues.

From me

The author is an ex-primary teacher who now works in STEM education.

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