Gender-blind childhood: My parents' approach shaped my worldview
Gender equality symbol.
What you need to know:
- Just like there were no gendered chores at home, there were also no differentiation when it came to the games I could play with my friends in the neighbourhood.
- I do not take it for granted that I grew up without the burden of gender – without anyone telling me I needed to do certain things because I was a girl.
As we celebrate International Day of the Girl Child this Friday, I’d like to share an ode I wrote to my parents for raising me without gender bias.
I grew up completely gender-blind. I come from a girls-only home which means that from as early as I can remember, my family did not have any gendered roles. All the house chores were divided between my two older sisters and me. As the last-born, I was assigned the least work, of course, but let us focus on the point this column is making.
I saw my father cook once in a while – he is the first person who attempted to teach me how to fry onions in oil until they caramelised and turned brown.
I was about 11 and although I had tried to cook on several occasions, I simply did not have the patience to wait for the onions to turn brown, I added tomatoes too soon. In retrospect, the bigger lesson my father taught me was that I need patience while cooking, a lesson that has served me well because today, I enjoy cooking more than any other house chore.
You can, therefore, imagine how my gender blindness made it hard for me to fully grasp when my friends at university told me things like “we had to cook and wash dishes while our brothers just watched TV.”
For them, this was “an initiation into the gender biases we’d face as we grew older.” I couldn’t relate – perhaps if I’d had a brother who watched TV or played football while I washed dishes every day, I would understand.
Just like there were no gendered chores at home, there were also no differentiation when it came to the games I could play with my friends in the neighbourhood.
Both boys and girls played together – whether this was hide and seek, jumping rope, football, climbing trees, bike riding, or bano and so on. Today, I can’t help but wonder if it was by design or completely random that neither of my parents ever made reference to my gender.
I do not take it for granted that I grew up without the burden of gender – without anyone telling me I needed to do certain things because I was a girl. Not having that burden is the reason I did not think twice before challenging my male classmates during debates, or why I never worried that having ambition and being bold was not the right qualities for a girl to have.
And so, on this day, as the world celebrates International Day of the Girl, I want to say hats off to my parents for the wisdom and dexterity to bring me up completely free of the gender burden. As a result of my upbringing, I link performance to abilities, passions and interests, not to gender.
I would like to conclude with a short letter to parents and guardians raising little girls.
Your child has no use for the gender biases you grew up believing. If she needs to work hard in school, it’s not because of her gender – it’s simply because working hard is important. If she wants to play certain games, whether or not you support her shouldn’t depend on whether she’s a girl, but on her ability or interest.
While I enjoyed climbing trees, my older sister had an intense fear of heights. One day, while playing outside, her friends were climbing trees and pressured her into joining them. She did, reluctantly. My dad recalls how one of the children ran home to tell him that my sister was stuck at the top of a tree, crying because she couldn’t get down.
He had to climb the tree and carry her on his back to bring her down. Family legend has it that my father and sister made an agreement that she would never attempt to climb a tree again.
I’ll be in trouble with my sister for sharing that story, but I wanted to use it as an example of when it’s okay to say no to your little girl. There will be times you will need to protect her from herself. You may need to protect her because she doesn’t have certain skills yet, but not because she is a girl.
As Chimamanda Adichie would say, there are many reasons why your little girl may or may not do something. However, “because she’s a girl” should never be one of the reasons you hold her back or stifle her ambitions.
The writer is the Research & Impact Editor, NMG ([email protected]).
