Sexism begins at school

Since about halfway through her first year in school the daughter has been bringing up only wanting to be around girls or only wanting to be friends with girls. I try as much as I can to accept when she likes things I don't, but ...

It usually starts with something like:

I only want to invite girls to my birthday party

Why?

All my friends are girls.

Really, what about A and B? Also the twins C and D, you're always talking about thing you do together. Plus E and F, you've been playing with them since you were born…

I like them. They're my friends. But I don't like boys.

That's just sexist and offensive. I know you don't really understand how those words are hurtful, but you need to know that saying things like that is going to make people more upset than you'd think. It makes me upset.

What bothers you so much about boys that you say you don't like them?

…They play football …

They don't all do that. Your friends who are boys don't. I have no problem if you say I don't like people who do something. It's just when you say you don't like any boys at all because some people you don't like are boys is just wrong. It just means that if we met when I was five, you'd refuse to be my friend just because I'm a boy. And that would make me sad because I would have really liked to be your friend.

At this point she'd seem to understand and agree with me. But she'd still bring it up again a few weeks later, so the point really hasn't sunk in. We've had a few variations of this conversation. Sometimes it starts with a friend who's only friends with girls, but more recently it's just been her outright saying she does not like boys.

The worst time was after she went to a football themed birthday party for a boy in her class. The parents brought someone in to teach the kids football tricks and things. Literally all the girls in the room (and some of the boys) went off to play with the toys, while exclusively boys did the football games. That really cemented the not-friends-with-boy thing for her. Plus it was the first time I'd really seen the division in action. It was actually quite scary. I was really hoping we'd moved on from when I was a kid, but it's dawning on me there's still a fight ahead.

None of that was there in nursery, or in the playparks, or in the games with the kids on the street. Yet somehow it's all crept in now that they're in school full time.

Is it the school that's to blame? Is it the parents deciding you're five, it's now time to take up your assigned gender role? Is it emergent behaviour that only comes out when boys play in groups? I can easily see the subtle sexism in clothes and interactions with adults and the insidious sexism in toys and TV and books building up and spreading like cholera on Broad Street. It's not that sexism really begins at school, it's just that's where it sinks it's claws into the kids, and I just want to see more effort it quashing it before it takes hold.

Her teacher has certainly noticed that at playtime most boys split off to play football, and that it's causing divisions between the children. She's told that that she tries to get more mingling between the groups. I personally would put more a fight into this, but the teacher has so much to juggle already, it's hard to blame her for not taking on the Big Fight.

I suppose most people don't see it as bad as I do. But I so clearly remember as a child seeing the girls are bad attitude of the boys around me turn, over the years, to full blown sexism and rape culture. How do people not see this?

This is where it all begins. This is where the monolithic gender roles start that causes so much damage... I tried to make a list, but it was longer than I was willing to type¹. Ultimately, this is why I started this blog in the first place – because men aren't supposed to play a significant part in raising children. And I am going to do my damnedest to make sure my daughter gets to be the person she wants to be.