Gender Stereotypes In Schools

All men who like pink are effeminate, is this really true? There seems to be a stigma surrounding colours, most commonly, that pink is decidedly feminine and thus should not be associated with masculinity and that boys and men should associate themselves with blue instead. However, a century ago, this was the opposite. In the 1918 edition of Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department, ‘The generally accepted rule is pink for boys, and blue for girls’. In 1927, a chart was published by the Times newspaper highlighting ‘gender appropriate’ colours by leading U.S retailers. Why would they have an interest in genders? Perhaps it was so they would be able to convince expecting parents to purchase entire new wardrobes of a different colour if the gender of their babies were not what was expected. This notion, perpetuated to boost sales, later evolved into a somewhat prevalent form of gender identification today, a form of stereotyping. Most of us learn stereotypes from our parents, significant others or the media. Why do we stereotype? Some studies suggest it is a way for our brains

As mentioned before, stereotypes are mostly learned from the people or media around us. These stereotypes are then instilled into us, however the schools we go to can conduct classes or programmes that help educate people how to identify stereotypes and how to eradicate them, thus helping to destroy stereotypes. One example of this are the recommendations by Alison Levitch and Sara Gable from the University of Missouri Extension on how teachers in school can help diminish the formation of stereotypes in kindergarten students. They could conduct activities involving both members of the opposite sex, recognise their students abilities without acknowledging their gender or by exposing them to models of people in non-traditional gender roles. Therefore, by starting young, we can eradicate stereotypes when they just start to