You once wrote that girls’ positive self-esteem grows and peaks around the age of nine. After ten, however, it begins to drop sharply. Why?
This is, unfortunately, a common and inter-cultural phenomenon. Regardless of the level of development of a given country and the dominant religion in it, we observe that around the age of ten, girls’ self-esteem changes. This is because the people around them start to see them as women. The phenomenon of sexualising children, i.e. assigning them sexual motives or behaviours, is commonly assessed negatively and is considered a violation of the norm. Unfortunately, this is not the case with gender stereotypes. When we start to treat another person in a special way due to the characteristics of their gender ascribed in culture, we think that it is normal, obvious. Meanwhile, research shows that stereotypical thinking about other people blocks their development.
How are girls being squeezed into these patterns?
Until the age of ten, we treat a girl like a child who has more freedom to express herself, dress, move, eat, manage her voice, establish relationships with others, and express her opinion. After that, regular behavioural training begins. It is based on the social approval of behaviour that is considered feminine and punishment for behaviour that is culturally ascribed to men. The rewards are sometimes subtle: it can be a smile, praise or a compliment, “What a pretty girl.” Punishments are often criticism, silencing, shaming, ignoring or ridiculing. It is worth noting that the 10th year of life is a breakthrough, but obedience training begins much earlier. Preschoolers already know the different expectations for boys and girls.
How do they find it out?
Learning what society expects of us on the basis of gender takes place in five environments. The first is the closest family, the second is peers, the third – the closest social environment, i.e. neighbours, the fourth – institutions, and the fifth – the media. The closest family is the first element to have an impact on us. Learning through observation has a great influence on children. Looking at people, especially those important to them, they create mini-models in their heads, which they later recall in various situations, comparing themselves with these people.
So if mum cleans the house alone for everyone, the girl will find it normal and will do it too?
Precisely. The child also learns a lot of things through language. Our thinking about ourselves and about people of the same sex is – especially when we are younger – a set of messages that we receive from the outside, especially from people who are important to us. So if dad tells jokes about dumb blondes and makes fun of women behind the wheel, and mum talks about herself or other women – a mean mother-in-law or boss – in bad terms this language becomes normal for girls. And that translates into what girls think about themselves and about other women. Just listen to the lyrics of the songs of Polish rappers. Every second word is “whores”, “bitches”, and “sluts”. Meanwhile, it’s a very popular music genre also among girls.
I don’t understand why they listen to this.
Because they are desensitised by living in our culture. Peer pressure also matters: girls who fall into this convention are seen as laid-back super friends. Those who are indignant are “stiff”. But let’s leave peers for now and get back to the family environment. The third way to learn what culture requires of us is through practice or action. Let’s look at the toys that adults buy for girls: baby dolls, vacuum cleaners, cookers. Daughters are taught how to wash, cook and care for a dependent person. In her spare time, it’s best for the girl to sit quietly in the corner and draw. Is it so hard to understand that a girl who an adult will never show how to change a light bulb, an electric socket or let her try to drill a hole in the wall has no way of learning it? Similarly, if a boy is not encouraged to do the washing together, he will never grasp how to use the three buttons on the washing machine, despite the fact that he can handle a computer keyboard.
When I was little, my friend dreamed of a Barbie doll. His mum didn’t want to buy it for him. He finally got it as a gift from my mother. He was overjoyed.
A similar story is described in the book “William’s Doll”. The dad doesn’t want to buy a doll for his son and the character who is the most positive, least stereotypically-minded person is the grandma. Very often in stores I observe situations in which a boy approaches the “pink zone” and is immediately turned back by his parents, grabbed by the hood. He gets the emphatic message: this is not your place. Then he doesn’t go there any more. On the other hand, girls rarely get construction toys, tools or robots. Why? When we see the adult beliefs behind this, we see their developmental power. Isn’t it because adults are convinced that men become engineers and programmers? And girls will need the ability to change a nappy more?
Let’s get back to peers.
This environment begins to have a strong influence on a person already in childhood, its influence intensifies in adolescence. Preschoolers already scold their friends that a boy should not wear pink clothes. Girls at school experience contemptuous language on the part of boys, judging their appearance, violating their physical boundaries, and harassment. Many adults downplay it, explaining that “boys will be boys”, that they are just “cocky advances”. It is very demoralising. Without objecting to it, we give girls a signal that what they feel is not important and the perpetrators go unpunished. This is silence training, we reap the fruits of this in situations of sexual harassment and rape. Ignoring the harm and silence strengthens the perpetrators.
Another influential group is the social environment.
It consists of people who are not our close friends. We may not even like them, but due to frequent contacts, they have a chance to evaluate us and give us feedback. This can be seen, for example, in a small rural community. A tenement house, a block of flats or a backyard can also be such an environment. Sometimes a child is brought up in a progressive family, but is limited by stereotypes passed on to them by the company they keep.
The fourth environment is institutions.
In highly civilised countries, there are many institutions that are involved in the system of socialisation and upbringing. Just look at how much the Church or politicians have to say about femininity. In addition, they have important tools to influence our lives. In Poland, we feel this interference into our privacy, for example in matters such as reproductive rights, protection against violence, alimony or divorce. School is an important transmission belt for stereotypes. What will a young person learn in school about the history of women’s emancipation? My research shows that not much. The point is not to let girls think that the customs or norms in force at a given point in history are not set in stone once and for all, that they can be changed. The history of emancipation shows that there are specific methods for this, and that women’s voices and organisation have power. This is very dangerous for an order built on the subordinate social position of women. When it comes to Marie Curie, one of the few women who appear by name and surname in school history lessons, it is not mentioned that it was the men who managed the Jagiellonian University who did not allow Maria to study and work at the university. And that they were driven by mental limitations, stereotypes, sexism and misogyny. Instead, students are simply told that Marie went to Paris, found her husband there, and stayed there. If told honestly, this story would be a field of discussion about inequality and power, right?
The last group that shapes a person is mass media.
In the past, it was actually a separate group of influences. However, since the emergence of social media, when talking about the influence of the mass media, we mean not only the influence of the media, but also other groups: institutions, peers or the immediate social environment. Our Facebook friends, whom we often haven’t seen in years, or even never met in real life, usually feel empowered to rate our photos and posts. Girls are constantly exposed to slut shaming and body shaming. Children also take the opinion of YouTubers and singers into account. The media are beginning to influence today’s children before they learn to speak and walk. Often conflicting messages emerge from all these environments. For example, the ideal of the development of sexuality according to the Church is completely different from that promoted in pop culture. Growing up and building your own identity is about making choices under pressure. There are so many obsessions associated with womanhood that a girl’s life is like walking through a minefield. Meanwhile, the clearer the division into what is feminine and what is masculine in a given culture, the more control mechanisms there are. When femininity becomes a religious, political, ideological issue, it is more difficult to be yourself.
What features, according to stereotypically-thinking environment, should a girl have?
A stereotype is a scheme that describes what most people belonging to a given group or category are or should be like. When we talk about gender stereotypes, we mean four components and groups of expectations: the first component covers all expectations related to personality and character traits, the second component relates to physical characteristics, the third defines social roles and behaviour, and the fourth relates to profession and work. The content of these idealised models of femininity and masculinity varies depending on the culture and times we live in, but on the other hand – due to the reproduction of stereotypes – it is disturbingly resistant to change.
What features do these components contain?
The first component specifies that a woman, and therefore a girl, should be delicate, submissive, caring, willing to sacrifice, focused on the needs of other people, but also focused on her body and appearance as well as on the aesthetics of the environment, like cleanliness and order. The second component provides specific body guidelines. It is an endless catalogue of prohibitions, orders and forms determining the quality of the skin, hair length, body weight and proportions, the appearance of breasts or eyelashes – each piece of the body is subject to normalisation and idealisation. In different cultures, different parts of the female body are closely controlled and trained. The third component shows the roles assigned to women – mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, caregiver. There is, for example, a social imperative that a good mother should give up many aspects of her own development: her interests, her time for herself, friendship, and her professional life. The role of the mother is higher in the hierarchy than any other. There are different clichés in different cultures. In our country, a Polish mother is a figure that in fact almost does not exist, but functions as a certain matrix against which we make comparisons, assessing whether someone is a good mother. In the ideal of mother and wife, the factor of self-sacrifice for others is very strong. The second important element of women’s social roles is their unpaid work for family members. It is somewhat the case that this mothering extends to all household members. Cooking, washing and putting things away in cabinets are activities that women often do, not only for dependent people – children or people with disabilities – but also for their husbands and other independent relatives. They become servants to everyone in the family. Society expects women to invest everything that is best in them: talents, knowledge and competences in their families. On the other hand, it is assumed that all the same male resources should be invested in the public sphere. The problem is that the two spheres are not equal in terms of prestige, money, recognition and agency. Placing women in the private sphere puts them in a worse position than men, so bringing up girls to be good mothers is, unfortunately, a social leash.
What’s in the fourth area?
It relates to the work performed and the profession. Already in school, girls are told that certain professions are feminine, so they will do better in them. On the other hand, there are messages about professions that are definitely not for women. The brilliant mathematicians, engineers, architects, builders mentioned in textbooks and films are almost always men. Teachers do not say directly: these professions are not for you. But girls realise that there are industries where men only work with men. If a girl has no other role models around her, e.g. an aunt who works as an IT specialist or a grandmother who was an architect, she becomes convinced that this is the order of the world. Women give up entering certain environments because they are afraid that they will be the oddball in them, all eyes will be focused on them, they will be assessed in a special way and will have to prove that they are not worse.
And what features are eradicated in girls?
All of them are attributed to men. For example, those that would enable them to be active citizens. We don’t want girls to be assertive, to speak up, to demand their rights, to use various tools of influence to get what they want. We don’t like it when they use the resources they have in their body, such as fitness, speed, a strong, confident voice, screaming, to mark their presence, to defend their boundaries. Girls should be nice and polite. All the features that build agency and self-confidence and help them be distinguished in the group, gain respect and position are eradicated in girls.
The same features in boys and girls are commented on differently by adults. For example, a boy is said to be a leader, and a girl is said to be bossy.
Adults put a lot of energy into not only teaching girls not to be boyish, but even more into discouraging boys from being girlish. They say, for example, “Don't act like a woman,” “Don’t cry,” “You throw like a girl.” In this way, it is emphasised that women and men are radically different, and what is feminine is considered inferior, derogatory. In fact, men and women differ in the distribution of the intensity of the various mental and physical characteristics. Moreover, there are greater differences within one sex than between the two. There is not a single psychological trait over which a given gender would have a monopoly.
Additionally, in the case of considering the personalities of men and women, the mistake is made in assuming that both women and men represent a certain unchanging set of characteristics throughout their lives. Psychology undermined the concept of personality as a set of permanent features because the same people, depending on the changing situation, can behave in extremely different ways. But despite the enormous amount of knowledge we have accumulated over the last hundred years of gender research, we are still stuck in myths and superstitions. When we ask parents why they suppress their daughters’ robustness or boyish style of dress, the answer is always the same – they are driven by the fear that their daughter will be negatively perceived by other people, and then by boys and men.
The source of all women’s controlling and disciplining behaviour is patriarchy. It is in the interest of men to maintain inequality because many of them benefit from the fact that women, for example, do housework for free, take care of children, earn less, and that they are able to have themselves cut with a scalpel and injected with viper venom to please men. So all girls’ training has one goal: to please others and to maintain inequality.
How can we help girls break out of this vicious circle?
Everything that parents, peers, teachers, the Church, politicians, YouTubers, influencers, rappers and pop stars say make up the Matrix, and it is difficult for a child to get out of it on their own. It is a large, complex social machine. It can be helpful when an adult who talks to a girl, listens to her, takes what she says seriously, exposes the system, and teaches critical thinking, undermining unfair mechanisms hidden in the rules and obviousness. Unfortunately, only adults who think critically are ready to do so. We are not able to emancipate someone, being oppressed ourselves or being the guardian of the patriarchy. That is why it is important to work on the awareness of adults who raise children: parents, teachers, leaders of organisations and groups.
Meetings with people who break the patterns are also a chance for change. Even a girl brought up in a very traditional family can oppose stereotypes if she has an emancipated aunt as a role model. Even if the aunt is considered the black sheep in the family, the girl, yes, gets the message that it is a little dangerous to leave the socially assigned role, but she also sees benefits and alternatives. A role model can be a teacher, teammate, trainer or nun – any person who has an open mind and is able to appreciate in this girl everything that others try to suppress in her. I remember a Facebook discussion in which someone asked internet users about when they became feminists. A whole bunch of stories spilled out that always had to do with a particular person. Sometimes it was a specific person from a close circle, sometimes the author of a book, the heroine in a film, sometimes a real historical figure. But it was always a role model, a concrete example of breaking patterns. So if we are emancipated ourselves, but we live in a conservative environment, the best we can do for our daughter, but also for our son – because changing men’s consciousness is equally important – is to be ourselves and show them alternatives. Provide valuable films, books, meet people who live in defiance of stereotypes. Only by making children of both sexes aware that the world is diverse and that our roles are not imposed on us can we raise free people with open minds who respect other ways of life and have the courage to realise their full human potential – regardless of the gender they got in the genetic roulette.
Iwona Chmura-Rutkowska, PhD – pedagogue and sociologist of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, she is scientifically engaged, inter alia, in issues of counteracting violence motivated by stereotypes, anti-discrimination education, and studies on the history of education of girls and women. Head of the council of the “Ja Nauczyciel’ka” [I, (female) Teacher] Foundation
Author: Magdalena Warchala-Kopeć
Illustration: Marta Frej
The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy" on 10 April 2021
