Western Morning News (Saturday)
It’s time to end the gender stereotypes
WHEN I was a little girl I told my parents I wanted to grow up to be a nurse. Not only would I be just like my mum but I would also get to wear a pretty uniform with a frilly hat. Maybe I’d also meet a nice doctor and marry him.
I never imagined that I would be the doctor, or maybe an engineer or a pilot, or that the man I might marry would be a nurse or a typist because back in the 1970s gender stereotypes were still very much the reality.
Yet decades later it seems children are still heavily influenced by stereotypes when it comes to the world of work – and what is considered a ‘man’s job’, compared to a woman’s.
According to new research, 45% of five to 11-year-olds believe that nurses are always women – and 22% think doctors are likely to be men. While 60% think that being a plumber or electrician is a man’s job – and almost half of the boys and girls surveyed said that men make better engineers.
Of the 1,000 children polled by CPD London, 42% thought pilots were always men and 32% said a
boss was more likely to be a man. While 39% thought mums should look after babies and do all the housework while dads should go to work.
While I didn’t become a nurse (turns out I’m not great with blood or giving sympathy) I did manage to get a job in journalism, which is no longer a job just for men in trilby hats and trenchcoats. My eldest sister became a doctor, no longer a profession just for men in white coats, and my best friend became a vet – a profession which is now dominated by women in brown coats.
My other sister got a job as a telephone engineer and wore a boiler suit to climb telegraph poles to fix broken lines. But she suffered some sexual abuse from male colleagues and eventually quit to be a teacher.
So despite mixed outcomes, my family did quite well at breaking moulds. But with gender bias obviously still present in children at such a young age, how can today’s parents minimise its impact – and show their children that their gender doesn’t have to determine their career opportunities?
Despite living in 2022 and a country which is short of every kind of profession and trade, we are still fed gender stereotypes which are used to justify social, political and economic inequalities. The gender pay gap, for example, is often put down to women seeking more caring, nurturing roles, that don’t happen to pay so well.
Unless we can alter children’s thinking at a very young age, those stereotypes will affect what they believe about their futures.
If a 10-year-old girl believes she has no chance of becoming an electrician or a physicist, she isn’t likely to pursue science subjects at GCSE or A-level and will be pushed towards a different, “more traditional” path.
Similarly, a boy who loves taking care of people may not want to admit he would like to be a nurse for fear of being bullied by his mates as ‘girly’.
While we might blame schools for allowing children to make stereotypical subject choices, experts say it’s also down to the parents not to pass on the stereotypes they grew up with.
They say the temptation to leave a child in front of the telly and let them watch whatever keeps them quiet (and still) for half an hour is naturally strong for most parents. But a huge number of TV programmes and cartoons still enforce gender stereotypes.
And then there’s the division of labour in the home. If children always see mum doing the housework because dad’s work is “more important” or “more exhausting”, it’s likely they won’t imagine it’s going to be any different for them. Equally, if it’s always dad who goes to work or plays football, the stereotyping is just as strong.
I think my parents must have struck the right balance bringing up their children. But Maggie Thatcher was around at the time, so I never dared tell anyone I also wanted to be a Prime Minister.
According to research, 45% of five to 11-yearolds believe that nurses are always women