Are we unwittingly conditioning our children to conform to gender stereotypes with our words?

It’s coming up to Christmas time. John Lewis and Marks & Spencer will have started to place their Christmas catalogues hopefully by the till. Advertisements will start to appear on the television with an even harder sell than usual, driving parents to tearing their hair out as the eight year old has changed their mind for the sixth time that week. The children’s section is now slightly more aware of its self and will offer some gender neutral toys and gifts, normally with a green border around the pages. But there will still be a blue section and a pink section.  There may be parents who will tut at this out dated attitude and purposefully buy a wooden dolls house for both of their children to share. But come 27^th of December and it’s time to write thank you letters, who will be told to neaten up their writing. Chances are that Flossie needs to sharpen up, whilst there is nothing to be done about Robbie, after all, all boys have messy handwriting. Don’t they? Think, how much easier is it for the alliterative “good girl” to roll of the tongue? And when was the last time you heard the phrase “girls will be girls”.   This is not an attack on manners and children, but simply trying to raise an awareness that the lexical choices that you make when conversing with your child can have just as much of a lasting impression as the clothes you dress them in and the toys you buy for them.

Today we have a better sense of equality; young women are told that they can be both a mother and successful career woman. Young men are encouraged to teach women with respect and not as objects. But sayings, and phrases used in response to a child’s behaviour or characteristics can quickly turn a cliché to reality. Political correctness may have changed some nursery rhymes (such is Ba ba black sheep to Rainbow sheep because of neo-colonist connotations) films now have role reversal of the man and woman.  Some words in theory are harmless and it’s just the connotations that have become attached to them, for example comparing the free man about town sound of bachelor, who could be in his twenties or his sixties to the depressed sounding spinster prematurely old written off in her thirties (although the feisty sounding bachelorette has arisen it has been dismissed in the UK as another ‘nasty Americanism’) Already with terms such as those children start to form an impression about how relationships work. One of the best ways to try and combat this is to try and praise children equally and avoid phrases that attribute their behaviour to their gender. Once you have got in the habit of just using a simple ‘well done Bobby’ Bobby will associate the behaviour not with the noun that classifies his gender but with his own proper noun, otherwise known as his name. It is also much more personal, and when you come to think of it less on the verge of patronization. Would you care for your boss, colleague or partner to congratulate you with ‘good woman/man’? Not only that but does it not just sound plain strange when applied to an adult?

And now think deeper. Think of how names and their connotations have been used and can also affect children. Look at some of the words used to describe the characteristics or gender or names. Male names are associated with being a friendly lively approachable and lovable figure, think of Jack the Lad or Mick maybe a bit of a ne’re do well that’ll break your heart but all is forgiven with the winning smile. Then think of all the girls’ names that have connation’s associated with them. Mary Sue is one of the most recent, imported in from America, used to claim that a female character has become too ‘perfect’ overall, and is unlikely to exist. Or Plain Jane, as the most obviously used. There is a whole list that can be found on the internet to describe the origins of girl’s names or what they are associated with, Emily, one of the most popular pleasant and harmless sounding names means rival. The only names that seem to be spared are names that are feminised versions of men’s. My own, for example, Charlotte simply says ‘male version of Charles’, with Charles meaning, free man from a great German leader. JK Rowling admitted in various interviews that she chose the name Hermione for the main female character as “[I] wanted it to be unusual since if fewer girls shared her name, fewer girls would get teased for it”. The same character has been praised for being a brave and intelligent female in the midst of predominantly male characters, why does she feel the need to apologise for her character?

The best way to try and move forward is to slowly phase out phrases and terms used to link gender and behaviour/characteristics. There is a multitude of negative and positive lexical choices out there. Not all of them require gender tags. Language is what we make of it. It is one of the most powerful tools on earth, which most of us are born with the capability of using. Misused and it can damage a generation.