Ewa Furtak: You tore Polish school textbooks to pieces, arguing that they reinforce neurosexist stereotypes that lock girls into traditional roles and affirm them in their conviction that choice is not an option.
Maria M. Pawłowska: You can't be something that you don't see. It's really essential. Mae Jemison, the first black woman to travel to space, saw Nichelle Nichols as her inspiration – a black actress playing captain Uhura in the "Star Trek" series. What are Polish textbooks like? Well, they reinforce the stereotypes that due to their “dissimilarity” (from the male “standard” for human species), women are not fit for playing certain roles. Although women are more empathetic and emotional, they have less scientific minds, do worse in maths, physics and other sciences, and are only fit for tasks that don’t involve thinking, making difficult decisions or managing people.
Basically, all school textbooks only show one woman who was successful in sciences – Marie Skłodowska-Curie. In general, textbooks include very few women depicted in a role other than a mother or wife.
This issue does not only concern textbooks. When cartoons were analysed, for example, it turned out that only one percent of the women featured in them play a role different than that of a wife or mother. Besides, stereotypically, every woman definitely wants to be a mother, while men have a choice – not every man necessarily wants to be a father.
Is it not true, then, that we are from Venus and men are from Mars?
The term neurosexism has been coined by Cordelia Fine – a professor at the University of Melbourne and author of the book “Delusions of Gender” (it was also published in Poland last year). In her book, she described the very phenomenon of using neurobiological studies to support sexist stereotypes about the intellectual capabilities of women and men.
If the studies are old, why not discard them? Or do they have relevance to the lives and careers of contemporary women?
Of course they do, and the relevance is huge. The most feminised professions in Poland offer low pay and little prestige. They include kindergarten teachers, carers for the elderly, nurses, secretaries, and medical laboratory technicians. According to Statistics Poland (GUS), the percentage of women in these professions is 94.9 to 99.8 percent, but there are no laws that forbid men to be kindergarten teachers, are there? It is also noteworthy that at the time when IT jobs were low paid, many women worked in such professions. As soon as this changed, men began to dominate them.
It is difficult for women to access top positions. As much as 30 percent of all employers admit that they would rather hire a man in an executive post, and only 6 percent respond that they would offer such a post to a woman. This also translates into earnings.
It has nothing to do with competence, as women in Poland have, for example, better education. It is solely the effect of stereotypes, according to which, due to certain qualities, women are less fit for managing people.
We do have certain advantages over men, though. For example, girls talk sooner than boys, don’t they?
Yes, indeed. Studies in small children show that girls have better language skills. However, there is no proof that this is due to predisposition. More likely, it is connected with the fact that guardians and parents talk to girls more often, believing – stereotypically – that they are more interested in interaction.
Some professions in Poland don’t even have female names. What do we call, for example, a male nurse? However, I am certain that there are professions fit only for men on account of physical characteristics alone. I just cannot imagine a female miner working underground.
Well, I can. A well-built, strong woman – and there are women like that – will do much better in such a job than a short, diminutive man. In fact, you don’t have to imagine that. Just read about the history of post-war Silesia. My husband would clip my daughter’s nails when she was little, because we were told that it should be done by the parent with better manual skills, and that’s definitely my husband.
Yet, it works both ways. Midwives are almost exclusively women. If you talk to men who chose this profession, they say that women giving birth just can’t believe that a man can be empathic enough.
On the other hand, the fact that there are so many male obstetrician-gynaecologists (who earn much more than midwives) raises no eyebrows. No-one is questioning the fact that a man may lack certain qualities to pursue this profession. Moreover, sometimes male gynaecologists treat midwives condescendingly – as a representative of a worse and less responsible profession. Yet, it was a midwife who saved my life when I was pregnant. I have a great deal of respect for midwives and I believe that it is one of the most important professions in the world.
However, sometimes men have it tough too and therefore the fight against neurosexism is also in their interest. For many men, the myth that a man has to earn more no matter what costs them their health.
There’s also the hormones.
To date there is no proof that hormones affect the structure or function of our brains. Testosterone is not a factor which might determine the fact that, for example, men are predisposed to be better mathematicians.
In fact, the term “sex hormones” itself is, in my opinion, incorrect. Both androgens and oestrogens can be found in both sexes and they also affect other organs, such as the skeletal system, in both men and women.
Polish evangelicals have recently started discussing the possibility of allowing women to be ordained priests, as is already the case in some other countries. This matter is, however, still postponed given social and cultural issues.
The domination of the Catholic Church in Poland translates greatly into the specific roles that girls are locked into. The Church is not progressive at all. It is an organisation completely dominated by men and it has an enormous impact on our lives. Unfortunately, this is the very reason why in school textbooks there is more about Pope John Paul II (a man) than Marie Skłodowska-Curie (a woman).
The fact that the Catholic Church still promotes a traditional division of roles in a family also does not help the professional opportunities of women. It is the mother who usually receives the call from the kindergarten if the child has diarrhoea or fever. Only 5 percent of fathers in Poland take their paternity leave for longer than 2 weeks.
At my renowned high school, a female teacher would tell us in French language classes that it’s the boys who need to study, because the girls would simply “put on a fancy hat and do just fine”.
Many female and male teachers are well qualified and competent, and do a great job in our sexist society. Unfortunately, among them there are also individuals who only ask male students to explain something or write something on the board and who compliment female students on their looks. And another thing: why do school dress codes often refer only to girls? We need to start working on changing that, and not only that.
Is there anything else that we should pay attention to?
Well, it often starts already during pregnancy: a mum-to-be often thinks differently about her child, depending if it is a boy or a girl. We should not force girls, before they are even born, into a symbolic pink box decorated with cute teddy bears. The brain develops the fastest within the first two years of our life, and these conditions many things in later years. We should not force girls to play with dolls if they prefer toy cars. Let them play with both. During this summer holidays, we had someone assume again and again that, since we were coming with a child owning a cross bike, it had to be a boy, while it’s actually our daughter who rides such a bike. I have also witnessed someone take a book about cars away from a 10-month old girl, as it was supposedly more appropriate for her little brother.
I know that online magazines publish various gift guides on what will make an excellent birthday present for a boy and a girl, but it’s absurd. Gender has no significance whatsoever. After all, it does not determine what we play with. We should never say – even as a joke – that our daughter has a “fiancé” in kindergarten. We should react to sexist remarks already in playgrounds. We should never tell a crying boy to stop acting like a girl.
What else can be done so that girls believe that they don’t have to be stuck for life in a pink box decorated with teddy bears?
Well, I can tell you how we raise our daughter. We bought her books about female pilots, chemists, politicians, and successful sportswomen, so that she can see – like Mae Jemison – who she can become. In fact, you don’t even have to buy books, you may borrow them. In Poland, we have great libraries with a wide range of books to choose from. We should show our daughters not only working fathers, but also working and successful mums.
It’s not like nothing can be done. Despite a traditionally low number of women at Polish technical universities, thanks to the “Girls at Technical Universities” (“Dziewczyny na Politechniki”) campaign – which has been going on for several years now – the number of women enrolling at such universities is higher every year. On the other hand, we would not need such campaigns today if not for years of leading girls to believe that they are not fit for studying science-based programs.
For the first time in history we also have as many as 12 women holding the post of vice-chancellors (rectors) of state higher education institutions. Not long ago it was simply unimaginable.
Perhaps, then, it is worth implementing a rule that when applying for a job, we shouldn’t reveal our sex in the resume or application?
Some countries already have such policies in place. I honestly think that Poland is one of the few countries where we attach photographs to application documents. I believe it’s something we should abandon as soon as possible.
I wonder how much longer we, male and female journalists, should write sensationalistic articles about, for example, a woman becoming a fighter pilot.
Sensationalism is probably not the way to go, but we definitely should write about it. There’s nothing wrong with praising success, especially when men keep beating us at the game of thrones. We need to support each other.
Ewa Furtak talks to Maria M. Pawłowska, PhD
- Maria M. Pawłowska, PhD - graduate of the University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, and University of Geneva, holder of a scholarship from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and from the Coimbra's European project. For many years she was a lecturer in post-graduate gender studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), a sexual educator and an expert of the Institute of Public Affairs (ISP). She is the author of, among others, the publication titled “Female and Male Brains – Neurosexism in Action and Its Social Consequences”. Today, she is part of “Visnea” – the first business in Poland created entirely by women and engaged in the collaboration between science and business.
The interview was published in "Wolna Sobota” of "Gazeta Wyborcza” from 15 August 2020.
