Time we demystify gender roles
mechanic

Girls should be encouraged to pursue careers of their choice

Recently, I went to a well-established Harare primary school for a meeting with the headmaster to discuss various issues.
While waiting for the headmaster I took a stroll around the school grounds and students were engaged in a number of extra curricular activities.

Pupils were engaged in various activities like the girl guides, interaction, public speaking and conservation clubs among others. The gender divide was also clear right from the top, as male teachers were heading boys’ clubs while females were with the girls.

There was, however, one girl in the karate club. She watched a pair of boys sparring in the ring, while the rest of the group cheered them on.

I almost didn’t notice her, until one of her peers called out her name, encouraging her to book her name with the teacher and get into the next round.

Sporting a bald head and with a diminutive stature, she didn’t appear the least bit intimidated by her peers, who were broad shouldered, tall and walking with a spring, displaying all masculinity traits we have grown accustomed to.

Just as I was about to approach the girl, for a word or two, the head’s personal assistant called my name and I hurriedly went for my meeting.

A number of schools, institutions and family set-ups are doing very little to demystify gender roles.

Little is being done to encourage children to break the barriers and fulfil their dreams and aspirations without having to consider their sex.

What children learn and how they are socialised have a huge bearing on how they will tackle gender roles thrust upon them in future.

Through a number of activities, encouragement, discouragements, opportunities and various forms of guidance from parents and guardians, they are unconsciously schooled to take up roles, without anyone necessarily telling them to.

It is for that reason that when one walks into any home today, a girl will be doing dishes, serving meals to the whole family or in her bedroom mesmerised with all sorts of Hanna Montana paraphernalia.

On the other hand, a boy of the same age would be holed up in the lounge watching TV, playing basketball outside or bent over the bonnet, fascinated by how a car engine works.

And as parents we cheer or encourage our children as they take on these socially prescribed roles and still expect them to defy the norm, when they venture out into the world, to take up different careers.

Ironically, parents often encourage girls to take up science subjects, but still deny them an opportunity to interface with the practicalities of life, like bending over a car bonnet.

The same parents still expect her to become the best mechanic or engineer Zimbabwe has ever had.

It is difficult or impossible for a child to become an adult without experiencing some form of gender bias or stereotyping. There are perceptions that boys are better than girls in Mathematics and that females can become good cooks, nurture children and are the best carers.

It is for that reason that we have more than 90 percent of female population working in the medical field, as nurses, nurse aides, while men take up powerful posts as specialists, doctors and other equally important positions.

It is not their fault, because their mothers socialise them into those gender roles. The same mothers empower boys, encourage them to reach for the sky, while telling the girl, to be educated enough to earn herself a man, who will look after her.

The girl is usually told that her role is to care for her husband and the children — typical of the proverbial good wife.

The same stereotypes are often reinforced at the workplace, where in a power meeting with executives from both sexes, males still expect their female executives to pour them tea, pass them sugar and sandwiches, while they discuss soccer, politics and the money market.

Again, it is not their fault.

That is how they were socialised by all the women they came across in their lives, be it their mothers, aunts, grandmothers and some of their female teachers in school.

They were encouraged to be assertive, control, gain power and be in authority. It is difficult for a child to become an adult without experiencing some form of gender bias or stereotyping.

As children grow and develop, the gender stereotypes they are exposed to are reinforced by other elements in their environment and are thus perpetuated throughout.

We should start teaching our children and nurturing them on who we want them to become.

They also need to know that what they will eventually become in life should not be inspired by the socially prescribed gender roles, but what they are capable of.

Those who have studied psychology often say that a child’s burgeoning sense of self concept is result of the multitudes of ideas, attitudes and beliefs that he or she is exposed to, while growing up.

The information that surrounds that child and which the child internalised come from within the family arena through parent-child interactions, role modelling from the extended family and reinforcement from the society we live.

So inasmuch as, he or she might want to pursue certain ideas; she experiences self-censorship, unless the parents approve them.

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