The response that one eight-year-old girl provided to a decidedly outdated homework question has been praised by parents and other teachers alike.
A question in a homework worksheet given to the young girl was supposed to elicit a sexist response, but she didn’t see it that way — not one bit.
Homework is not exactly any child’s favorite activity.
However, for eight-year-old Yasmin, her homework threw up a lot more questions about everyday sexism and gender roles than it may have been intended to, according to many individuals who have since read the question.
Yasmin was asked to write out a word which had “ur” in it and meant “hospital lady.” So, Yasmin naturally wrote the word “surgeon.”
However, Yasmin’s teacher highlighted that her answer may not have been the intended one.
The reason why Yasmin wrote “surgeon” is because of the fact that her mother and father are both surgeons.
One of Yasmin’s parents posted the image of her worksheet to Twitter, writing as the caption:
“8 year old daughter’s schoolwork – check out Q1 #looklikeasurgeon #mummyisasurgeon (and so is daddy!).”
Twitter users deemed the question “outdated” and generally incorrect.
The question was on a worksheet from 1997, which means that you would have thought that it had been taken out of circulation by now, or at least updated.
Although, some people found the question to be unacceptable even by 1997’s standards, with one individual writing:
“Good grief! SCHOOLS are STILL teaching sexist stereotypes? That was even outdated for 1997! Or even 1977!”
Many people were concerned about the teacher clearly suggesting “nurse” as the right answer.
With some individuals claiming that the teacher needed “unconscious bias training” there were also a lot more people concerned about a worksheet from 1997 still being in circulation.
The majority of people simply praised the young girl’s answer for being a good reflection on her parents.
“You are obviously raising your daughter to be intelligent, empathetic, confident, and open-minded!” one person responded by writing.
Studies show that exposing primary school kids to gender bias can have long-term effects.
One study, published by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research, found that gender bias has long-lasting ramifications upon primary school pupil’s life goals.
“Our results suggest that teachers’ biases favoring boys have an asymmetric effect by gender— positive effect on boys’ achievements and negative effect on girls’. […]
“These results suggest that teachers’ biased behavior at early stage of schooling have long run implications for occupational choices and earnings at adulthood, because enrollment in advanced courses in math and science in high school is a prerequisite for post-secondary schooling in engineering, computer science and so on,” the study found.
For a lot of people, the issue comes down to worrying about what children see themselves as capable of.
Writing about the issue or representation and the idea that “If she can’t see it, she can’t be it,” The Guardian’s Rebecca Brand pointed out:
“[Children’s] developing minds are that little bit more unquestioning about what they see and hear on their screens […] What message are we giving those impressionable minds about women? And how might we be cutting the ambitions of little girls short before they’ve even had the chance to develop properly?”
Hopefully resources for children’s education can be brought up-to-date.
When young girls like Yasmin are able to see themselves in whatever position they want to be in when they’re older, and not feeling restricted by social factors or prejudices, then the world benefits greatly.
Perhaps Yasmin will grow up to be a surgeon just like her parents, although Yasmin’s parents did also go on to post, “[Yasmin] wants to be an ice cream seller [she’s] too bright to be a surgeon.”
