Gender Equality
For our last show we created at Udruga IKS, we aimed to promote gender equality to children in the place that children know best, the play-ground. We wanted to break down stereotypes of what girls and boys are and how they should behave. We did this by looking at the games that children play in the playground, and which ones are thought of as gender specific. The story line we devised to address this issue was the story of a pair of twins Tomy and Mai, who are identical apart from the fact that Tomy is a boy and Mia is a girl. Mia and Tomy have always played the games that they want to play, but on their first day of school they discover that that is not how it works. So that night the twins decide to chainge roles for a day by swopping their clothes. Through this they open the minds of others children, they demostrate that it doesn't matter your gender for what games you play or what you want to do when you grow up.
From being around children, observing them at play and talking to teachers, and of course being a child myself, I have to admit there does seem to be a natural tendency for girls to be drawn to nurturing and creative activities such as playing with dolls or making daisy chains, and boys to be drawn to more physical and dynamic activities such as climbing trees and building dens. However I think it is very important that children don’t feel restricted to certain activities and to have the freedom to try out different ways of playing. Children learn through play and if they can play more freely then they can learn more freely.
I also sometimes worry about the fact that a lot of activities and games that are more associated with boys like playing football or building dens have a lot more status than the games and activities that girls like to do. This is reflected in adult society for example mail divisions of football are hugely recognised and supported were as women in sport are largely ignored. Also, much more importantly, jobs that are predominantly done by men, such as building, are given much more status and higher pay than jobs predominantly done by women, such as care work.
Returning to the playground again for a moment, I have also noticed that a girl that finds herself more drawn towards “masculine” activities will often find herself having more social status among her peers, where as a boy more drawn towards “feminine” activities will often be looked on as week and “sisy”. You could say this shows that, in this case, women can be more free in their choices, but I think this attitude demonstrates that female activities are seen as lesser and that men that “stoup” to take part in them must have something wrong with them, and women who are not interested in the “male” way of doing things will not get anywhere in life. This also demonstrates that men are restricted by this attitude as well as women.
The attitudes that create these inequalities are allowed to start at a very young age, which is why I feel it is important that this issue is addressed in primary school in a way that children can relate to. This was our reason for putting on this performance. For I believe if girls and boys can play well together learn more about their differences and similarities then they can all grow up to have much healthier relationships and self-confidence which are a good bases for an enriching and happy life and a fuller more effective society.
