My gender light bulb moment occurred on a visit to my grandmother’s place. I had always liked helping my father out with his work at home, especially fixing the car. I loved how the engines worked, the mechanisms involved and all the physics involved. It was not long until I realized this was not the work for a ‘lady.’ On one of these repairs, my grandmother’s called me back to the house to help prepare lemonade for the men while they worked. “This is what we always did, let the men work on the vehicles. We can prepare for dinner”, she said while sending my little brother out to help with the vehicle repairs.
From that moment, I began to understand what gender roles were. The stereotypic parts that had been defined according to sex were apparent at that point. ‘That is not ladylike’ is the statement that establishes that situation; that women belonged in the kitchen and men worked outside, and that specific tasks were meant for females and others for their male counterparts (Tabassum & Nayak, 2021). Since I am female, it was evident that everything I liked doing was to identify with my sex identification.
Sex-role stereotyping and gender bias can be countered by educating people on the importance of diversity. In this way, people can learn to like what they like and embrace it without the shame of feeling uncomfortable. In class, the best way to do this is by providing a range of role models who have challenged these stereotypes, showing them that they can be whomever they want. Another way is by avoiding the assignment of tasks in the classroom according to gender and using inclusive language while in class.
In the article written by Michela Carlana (2019), research is done on the performance variation of learners of both sexes based on teacher stereotypes. It was noted that an educator’s stereotype directly affected performance (Carlana, 2019). Girls with these teachers often performed poorly in mathematics than boys of the same class and achieved better grades when under inclusive teachers. An assumption was made that the notion that said ‘girls are bad a math’ could be a reason for poor performance in the subject.
References
Carlana, M. (2019). Implicit stereotypes: Evidence from teachers’ gender bias. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(3), 1163-1224. Web.
Tabassum, N., & Nayak, B. (2021). Gender stereotypes and their impact on women’s career progressions from a managerial perspective. IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, 10(2), 192-208. Web.