Jo Heywood, a head teacher at Heathfield School in Ascot, has called for all parents to work together to raise ‘gender neutral’ children, in a bid to help both sexes cross over into career paths that are not seen as ‘typical’ for their sex.
Heywood, who runs the elite girls boarding school that sets parents back £30,000 per year, spoke to The Sunday Times about how eliminating gender stereotypes can help widen opportunities for youngsters as they grow up.
She said: “If a little boy wants to explore wearing a princess dress and a little girl wants to spend time in a fireman's outfit, then that is to be encouraged.”
Last week, Adele was praised for letting her little boy wear a princess outfit on a trip to Disneyland. Three-year-old Angelo was dressed as Anna from Frozen – a worthy outfit and role model for any little tot, we’re sure you’ll agree.
The picture that went viral of the hit-making mum sparked the discussion, and Heywood continued:
“Have girlie make-up, but let boys have it too…Girls and boys should be allowed to explore roles traditionally associated with the opposite sex.”
According to a survey conducted by Channelmum.com, it seems more and more parents are siding with Heywood, as three out of five agree that gender labels should be taken off both children’s toys and clothes.
That means that pink prams would no longer be labelled for little girls, nor blue trucks for little boys.
Gender neutral school uniforms were also in favour among the 2000 mums surveyed.
Heywood believes that allowing kids be brought up without a rigid view of gender – and the traditions and stereotypes that go along with it - would allow more women to aim for jobs in sectors dominated by men.
For example, we'd see more women in science based roles.
Although it seems we’ve been making progress towards more balance within job roles, according to Wise - a campaign to promote women in science, technology and engineering – the percentage of women graduating from STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects has dropped in the last year alone.
In 2015, the number of women graduating with architectural and building based degrees dropped 9.5 per cent from the previous year, and 7.7 per cent for maths related subjects, 7.3 for physical sciences.
Wise demonstrated the lack of sex balance in these subjects currently. Women only make up 14 per cent of the engineering and technology sector, 17 per cent of computer science, and 33 per cent of architectural, building and planning jobs.
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