Sexism starts at childhood. Growing up in a world awash with stereotypes that are actively reinforced and taught in schools and at home, shapes children’s minds to believe that we as people need to fit into these dangerously narrow and constructed ideas of identity and self.
This problem is particularly prevalent in the teaching and learning of gender identity, that both subconsciously and consciously enforces negative connotations to identifying as a woman.
The world at large running on a system filled with institutionalised misogyny, is so afraid of people escaping the manufactured ‘binary’s’ of gender, connotations of being feminine are still to this day synonymous with being ‘weak’ or ‘lesser’ and these mindsets are cultivated from birth.
Sexism is so intrinsic to our lives that it can be challenging to notice however, in the contrary it begins as a young girl being praised for being passive, whilst boys are rewarded for being active, boys told when taking the lead they are strong and determined whereas as a girl told you’re bossy and overbearing. These differences culminates in the idea that being a man is superior to being a woman, and children are taught gender can be used as an insult. This ‘everyday sexism’ forces a barrier between genders whereby you grow up to believe you have pre-determined roles to fulfil based solely on your gender.
Being taught that gender is binary is damaging not only as it leads to misconceptions and confusion about children’s own identity, but it reinforces negative ideas about what it is to be a woman. In children that creates a culture that breeds and facilitates sexism amongst young children. This divide is a disease that spreads across all aspects of life from boys being told to play football whilst girls netball, to girls being indoctrinated to believe their destiny lies in reproducing whilst men’s to become powerful and successful. You may believe this archaic narrative has changed but what I see is a society that still sees a woman before they see a person.
An issue that is rarely discussed is the disastrous mess that is sex education in schools. What is so negligently harmful is the representation of gender within these lessons. Through only teaching about sex, especially in primary school education, as a reproductive necessity crucial issues of consent, female pleasure and LGBTQ+ sex are left untouched. By children and teenagers learning about sex in this way, it enforces the idea that sex is merely a means to produce offspring, this in conjunction with a sole focus being on male pleasure, can lead to damaging ideas being facilitated to some young men that women are theirs to use. Additionally, it corroborates the harmful dominant ideology in society that woman exist to reproduce, this being their central purpose in life.
Sex education alarmingly doesn’t provide the tools for young women to understand and accept their bodies and their sexuality as something positive and empowering. Additionally, nor does it aid men in understanding of healthy relationships and the nature of sex as a mutual act, nor
in their understanding of consent- something I must add is emphasised far more strongly with young women and their need to learn to ‘protect themselves’ rather than with boys, even though men make up for 90 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence against women, and against male victims of sexual assault, 93 percent (National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010)
This is an example of a wider issue of the objectification of women, that extends further even than the right men feel they have over our autonomy, to the harmful idea that women simply exist for the pleasure of men and not in our own right.
Taking this all into account although appalling, I am sadly left understanding why many men young and old hold such deeply rooted misogynistic views; it’s because we live in a patriarchal society that actively reinforces these gender stereotypes that then, as boys grow older, cultivates and intensifies in adolescence with embedded beliefs of superiority deeply established. This then manifests into the problems women face of, at the extreme femicides, to the pink tax, to slut shaming to unequal pay.
There is no denying gender representation in the media is damaging to men and women but it is merely a mirror that reflects the values of society. Social media and mainstream media open the floodgates for fat-shaming, slut-shaming, and internalised misogyny to name just a few of the issues, however, whilst this toxic culture exists in print and online we as a society to start with need to challenge this representation in our lives, as day to day it is average people who are the authors of such hatred simply through the words they speak.
As expressed by the theorist Gerbner; repeated patterns of representation shapes peoples views and opinions, reinforcing dominant ideologies, in this case associated with gender and what it is to be a man or woman. The problem is, sexism doesn’t begin in adulthood, it is an oppressive principle of life that begins at birth and this is from where it needs to end.
Imi Dobber Yr12
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