At Reimagine Gender, we talk about the importance of knowing your Gender Story — the set of experiences and interactions that ultimately shape the lens through which each of us see gender in our personal and professional lives. When people think about their gender stories, particularly early and formative memories, they’re often transported back to the classroom, the playground or the school gym.
Indeed, young people’s experiences with gender at school play an instrumental role in their development. Early internalization of gender-based messages can have long-term, lifetime consequences. This is true for all young people (for example, research shows that a woman’s lifelong earnings are influenced by the levels of sexism in the state in which she was born), and can be particularly consequential for those who are gender diverse or simply don’t identify with traditional notions of gender in their schools or community.
How gender shows up at school
In preschool and elementary school, it’s not uncommon for teachers to ask students to line up by gender — girls in this line, boys in this one. This is one of many arbitrary gender-based practices that send early messages to young people about the binary as an organizing principle. For gender-diverse children, it can bring up difficult questions and feelings: if you don’t feel like you fit in either line, where do you fit at all? And for all children, it sets up this boy-girl dichotomy as the ultimate division: we are fundamentally different from one another, and our gender is the driving factor that shapes those differences.
Those differences are reinforced during the early years of school. Many schools host Father-Daughter dances, which encourage young girls to get dressed up, do their hair and make their dads proud of how beautiful they look. These reinforce the “sweet” image of “daddy’s little girl”, whereas the less common Mother-Son dances don’t usually elicit the same reaction — a boy close to his mom is a derogatory “mama’s boy.” The existence of these events sends harmful messages to all children about what’s expected of them (or not) based on their gender. If you don’t relate to those expectations or can’t engage in these types of events because of your gender, it can leave you feeling left out or not good enough. The underlying heteronormativity is also being reinforced in these assumed opposite sex dancing. Fostering parent child bonds is important, but these stereotyped gender functions are not the best means of accomplishing that and in fact reinforce harmful messages.
As children grow older, we see gender-based stereotypes shape their decision-making and interactions with one another. Research has shown that in elementary school, girls stop thinking they’re equally smart and capable to boys. They tend to stay away from STEM-focused activities when given a choice, which may also be caused by a lack of role models and representation of women and non-binary people leading in different types of STEM careers. On the other hand, boys may be teased if they emotionally express themselves or lose to a girl; they often feel left out of rougher physical play and sports discussions if these aren’t areas of interest for them, which can lead to social isolation. As kids mature, boys and girls who were previously best friends are no longer allowed to engage in social sleepovers, in part because of adults’ hetereonormative assumptions.
One of the many ways this all gets reinforced is through schools’ approach to puberty and sex education during childrens’ formative years. Most schools separate the classroom into boys and girls, and assume someone’s gender identity and sexual orientation based on their sex. There’s also often a harmful conflation of sex and gender that takes place across puberty and sex ed curricula. As taught, many of these classes can lead children to question whether and how they belong, and reinforce and perpetuate harmful misconceptions about what gender is (and isn’t).
What schools can do about it
The examples above represent some of many ways that schools are — often unintentionally — sending binary, harmful messages and ideas about gender. The good news is that there are simple frameworks and changes that teachers and school leaders can make to create more inclusive environments where all students can thrive.
Understand that gender affects all students
Every young person is affected and shaped by the messages they receive about gender. On top of that, we live in a world where perceptions of gender are changing rapidly, and students today have much different and more expansive notions of gender than their parents did. To serve the students of today and tomorrow, schools must commit to increasing their gender literacy. This primer on understanding gender is a good place to start.
Don’t insert gender where it’s not needed
It’s amazing how much we bring in gender when it’s not needed — for example, having kids line up as girls and boys, dividing teams into boys and girls, or including gender with student names on a class roster. Why is it necessary to bring gender into these situations? It’s generally not, so if we can avoid it, we should — it’s one of the most effective ways to move beyond binary thinking.
Increase representation and use inclusive language
When thinking about curriculum, apply a gender-inclusive lens. This means not only featuring stories and conversations about gender-diverse people, but also featuring representations of men and women that counter harmful social and cultural stereotypes.
Adopt an inclusive approach to puberty and sexual education
As one of the foundational educational experiences for children, puberty and sex ed classes can actually be a really positive place for advancing an inclusive, expansive understanding of sex and gender. Our friends at Gender Spectrum have a helpful guide with plenty of best practices on this front, including avoiding making assumptions about young people’s bodies and the need to use inclusive language and pronouns.
Create space to talk about gender
Gender is deeply personal and appears, well, everywhere. Teachers can play an active role in helping to disrupt binary, stereotypical understandings of gender and create safe spaces for students to reflect on their own experiences. This is a wonderful guide from Gender Spectrum that can help educators facilitate these conversations.
Our role as parents
In many cases, it’s the parents who help drive schools toward these changes. Here’s a favorite example on that front:
Parents can and do play an instrumental role in working together with educators and schools to create more inclusive practices and curricula that empower all students to be themselves.
Parents can also take action at home, carving out time and space to have discussions with their children about gender. These don’t need to be “big” discussions or serious moments; instead, ask small questions in the car or when you’re watching TV or when you’re talking about what they learned that day. Combined with inclusive school practices, moments like these will help young people feel free and empowered to show up as the truest version of themselves.