2021

A Feminist Approach to Education by Lily Selthofner

Education is a primary foundation of identity. Our community’s curricula may be relatively progressive and innovative, yet the underlying ‘hidden curriculum’ (of socializing students within the school system), has severe consequences that are often unnoticed and even tolerated. The biases of both our textbook and underlying, at times unconscious teachings to youth have profound effects on the futures of our students. These mindsets enable or disable students for a lifetime, as many adults may feel within themselves. To create a safe and empowering environment for all students, we must become aware of the array of inequalities reinforced in our local education system, and be active participants in their deconstruction with commitments to truth, justice, compassion, awareness, and innovation.

Many studies have focused on childhood development, and data reveals an extensive array of both overt and unnamed inequality. Starting in preschool, the education system defines children by their gender. Girls wear immobilizing dresses and tights — and their playtime is more structured. Further, girls are given more limiting negative reinforcement. Boys are allowed more retaliation and are disciplined with more physical touch than girls — teaching them that aggression is a means of control. 

Biases in early childhood socialization have lifelong effects on body language and self-esteem. Conditioned movements and gestures create a bodily difference between genders. Social inequalities are presented as natural differences to kids from very young ages, which then falsely manifests as uninformed justifications for sexism, rather than understood as cultural conditioning, where misogynistic systems run deep and must be uprooted.

‘Boys against girls’ tropes spark competition. Women are left with increased quietness, docility, and appearance-related insecurities. Boys are asked to carry more heavy things and given extra academic positive reinforcement. Girls are more likely to function in small groups, whereas boys are allowed to take up more physical space in the classroom (and the playground) and are more likely to function in large, hierarchical groups.  

At the top of this hierarchy lies hegemonic (the most ‘powerful’) masculinity. Maintained through competitiveness, emotional detachment, sexual objectification of women, and the ability to publicly display those qualities — hegemonic masculinity structures the adolescent male social life. Teachers, under-resourced, are often complacent in its cultivation, leading to bullying, physical injury, sexual harassment, and homophobia in schools. Alarmingly, sexual objectification of women — and homophobia — are seen as a masculine status symbol before boys even reach puberty. 

Community and society play a substantial role in the maintenance of gender inequality in these forms. It is the responsibility of teachers to enforce equality by facilitating safe communities and setting examples of empathy and authenticity for students, to build a better future. Teachers should be provided with the proper means and resources to do so. Families must do better too.

Gym-class boys are given unequal entitlement to aggression — one in three women will quit competitive sports by the late teen years, whereas only one in ten boys will. Women live longer and have more endurance, agility, flexibility, and lower body strength than men on average. Yet, misogynistic measurements of strength are ingrained in our systems: such as basketball hoop heights and football widths, not to mention dramatic underfunding, double standards in uniforms, harsher standards causing injury, eating disorders, and systemic sexual abuse, all areas where justice goes even more under-addressed in women’s sports.

Further, classes that teach male-dominated fields like tech-ed often tolerate toxic hegemonic masculinity. Unfortunately, that means women (and gay men) often have to choose between suffering harassment, or giving up learning typically ‘masculine’ skills and going into subsequent fields, that usually have high pay and fewer education requirements. Nobody should have to tolerate inequality and harassment to have fair access to academic or professional opportunities.

In our predominantly white and Christian community, racism and homophobia are in education spaces. Marginalized groups are ostracized by peers. Classrooms lack thoughtful rhetoric because curricula are often built with propaganda, censorship, and misinformation. Hurtful rhetoric should be met with accountability and change. With divisive and hateful views normalized by our political representatives on our screens: Glen Growthman says women should stay in the kitchen, for example, families and schools have an even greater burden to combat that behavior.

The overt curricula must be more progressive as well, as personal safety and family wellness are built upon these foundations. Up-to-date women’s health, including menstruation and birth control, should be taught in health classes. Accurate anatomy, queer sexual education, respect, relational skills, emotional awareness, and trauma-coping tools are also necessary. Stricter discipline of students is not the solution. Staff complacency (or aid) in in-school inequality must not be tolerated. Students must have their individual needs met. Paying teachers adequately will motivate professionalism and progressive, conscientious action.

From a young age, bias in styles of positive and negative reinforcement limits the female mind and body — contributing to the misconception of inequality between genders that social systems ingrain and normalize. Moving further into elementary school, masculinity is allotted toxicity. With decades of failed efforts to end bullying, one must ponder who is encouraged to bully. Even further, school is not a safe space for many students, and with gun violence, parents often do not feel safe sending kids to school. 

Faculties must do better to prevent inequality in learning places. Adequate pay for teachers and respect between teachers, administration, and is a must — alongside revised curriculum, both overt and covert (better community conduct). Reparations for unprevented damage also include quality and accessible mental health resources in schools, and more accessible forms of education at all levels, daycare through phD.

Education is not a place for inequality or ostracization of any kind. It is rather the place where adults should be held most accountable for enforcing equality, with open-minded and inclusive rhetoric, and a commitment to truth and justice, as we influence the malleable minds of youth. It is unacceptable to give some a lifetime of imposter syndrome limiting beliefs, and/or entitlement to racism, sexism, homophobia, and nationalism. It is our responsibility to deconstruct inequality. As education systems move into the post-COVID world, we must take advantage of this opportunity to take thoughtful action to address the inequalities and biases within our schools. 

The original version was written and published in local newspapers in June 2021.

The version here is revised 2024.