Build girls’ self-esteem

Women and men enjoy equal rights in this country and many other advanced nations in the world, don’t they? The answer is murkier than one might think at first. Inside the minds of children six years old and up, it’s still a world where Dick trumps Jane.

This has been shown by a study from New York University in which psychology professor Andrei Cimpian studied 400 children aged five to seven. They were shown pictures of well-dressed professional-looking men and women, and pictures of boys and girls. The subjects were asked to identify the person who is “really, really smart.”

Here’s the heartbreaking part: At age five, the children generally chose the picture of the person who matched their own gender. At age six and seven, the girls started choosing the pictures of males.

Some academics suggest that once they are exposed to formal schooling, girls begin to see that the geniuses who built our society are predominantly male. That’s not because women are less gifted, but because society denied these opportunities to them until very recently.

We should be educating ourselves and our children better. When there was a discussion last year about which woman would be featured on Canadian currency, many people had unfortunately never heard of some of the finalists, including civil-rights activist Viola Desmond, who will be featured on the $10 bill starting next year.

Teachers should be encouraged to highlight the achievements of the brave few — women such as poet E. Pauline Johnson, scientist Marie Curie and political leader Golda Meir — who defied social convention and claimed the same work as men long before it was widely accepted. Discussing these achievements in the context of their times would be a welcome step as we start dismantling those last, elusive barriers to complete equality.

Waterloo Region Record