Lawrence's blog: Gender stereotyping - the subconscious message

Our daughter like a majority of similar aged girls loves princesses; be it Elsa and Anna from Disney’s Frozen, Snow White, Cinderella, Belle from Beauty and the Beast or Ariel from the Little Mermaid.  Whilst I am not typically one for overthinking the relevance of a pre-schoolers interests, following the barrage of Princess related gifts that were bestowed upon our daughter for her third birthday, it has gotten me thinking about the subconscious gender messages we are sending our little girl.

The traditional gender roles that pitch the male as muscular and domineering and the female as beautiful and emotional should be a thing of the past; and whilst there are limited examples of this changing (Men’s Ugg boots, female construction workers and females in football being some of the more recent and interesting examples that come to mind), in fostering the fascination with princesses and being a ‘girly girl’ maybe we are reinforcing the wrong message………

The portrayal of women in the vast majority of influential animated films is one that focuses primarily on the ‘appearance’ of the female (who is usually awaiting their prince charming) and less on any inner substance; and in doing so often plays to these traditional gender roles.   There are some notable exceptions (Disney’s Brave for example), and it is of course easy to point the finger. However, the reality is that I subconsciously also play to these stereotypes, often telling my daughter she “looks beautiful like a princess” and that she is “so pretty”. Are such messages too setting an aspirational model that leads young girls to feel that they will be judged purely on their looks? The answer, probably.

In an age of reality TV, spray tan and lip gloss, our children are growing up more and more quickly and in doing so I can’t help but feel that their innocence is akin to a sand timer of which the princess culture and our own messages can only serve to make the sand ebb away faster.

My take on such issues has previously been one of ignorance, claiming these are issues borne out of our own self-consciousness and the ready availability of endless online forums. However, maybe now is the time for me to wake up to the fact that that to equip our children with the confidence to withstand the barrage of gender assigned social pressures that await them, perhaps we need to ensure we instil a sense of balance to their early year exposures. Maybe this occurs naturally or maybe it is something we need to give more thought to.

In my current role and previous roles I have been fortunate to work with and for strong female professionals who serve as great role models to aspiring young women. As an ethnic minority I like to think I can also relate in part to the uphill battles and sacrifices many professional women make to maintain and progress their careers.  However, I acknowledge I can and should do more to help instil the positive gender messages in my own child.

In the case of our daughter, more recently she has started to show an interest in Marvel superheroes (which as a comic book geek is great for me), and whilst this is another muscly male dominated world of make-belief, there are some strong female characters from which to draw that represent a break from the princess norm.  For now, we’ll sit and watch the Avengers and I’ll try to be more conscious of my own subconscious gender messages.

Lawrence is father to a two year old girl. He works full time at a City accountancy firm and occasionally works from home.