Nursery World - In My View - Can we be gender-blind?

A four-year-old boy, Jeremy, goes to nursery school wearing hair-slides.

Another little boy teases Jeremy, telling him that he must be a girl because 'only girls' wear slides in their hair. Eventually, in frustration, Jeremy pulls down his trousers and undies to display the incontrovertible proof of his maleness. To which the other child, unimpressed, merely responds that everyone has a penis but only girls wear hair-slides.

Jeremy is the son of feminist scholar Sandra Bem, and this anecdote illustrates something about what children know about the sexes. By pre-school, a child can easily be a bit hazy regarding the hard facts on how males and females differ. But on the topic of what colours, symbols, toys, accessories and activities are 'for' boys or girls, they are certain to already enjoy extensive and quite sophisticated knowledge.

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