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This article argues that gender is a routine everyday performance.

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This is a TED talk about how gender is assigned to individuals from young.

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Girls, boys, and science toys | Jenna Connolly | TEDxOrangeCoast

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The gender tag: Authentic gender expression

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The gender tag: Authentic gender expression

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This TED talk explores the diversity of gender.

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The Gender Tag: Authentic Gender Expression | Ashley Wylde | TEDxCSU

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This video provides a sociological introduction to gender stratification in society.

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Gender Stratification: Crash Course Sociology #32

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Countering children's gendered assumptions of occupations in class

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Countering children's gendered assumptions of occupations in class

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This video shows how childrens' views on gender roles are something that can definitely be turned around. Conversations in the classroom where gender roles are explicitly addressed could go a long way.

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A Class That Turned Around Kids' Assumptions of Gender Roles!

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Breaking gender stereotypes from an early age

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Breaking gender stereotypes from an early age

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This article argues that gender stereotyping can be tackled in preschool by promoting equality in the skills children learn and the possibilities they see for themselves.

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We all know that children are like little detectives. They are constantly seeking to classify and categorise the world around them in order to make sense of it.

Part of a child's development is the process of beginning to understand, and grapple with, the complex concept of gender.

It's fairly well-established that awareness of gender emerges early in a child's life. Picture: Getty Images

Recent media reports have highlighted that it doesn't matter how old you get - understanding gender, and all its associated misconceptions, judgements and assumptions - remains complex well into adulthood.

Despite reports to the contrary, Victorian councils are not planning to remove any children's books from library shelves under new gender guidelines informed by our research over the last few years.

In 2016, Associate Professor Naomi Priest from the Australian National University and myself were commissioned by the City of Melbourne to conduct a literature review, to bring together evidence related to gender stereotypes in preschool children.

Minding the gap for boys and girls at school

And while this is an area where theory abounds, we found that there was a lack of empirical, or hard, evidence about the influences on children's perception of gender.

It's now fairly well-established that awareness of gender emerges early in a child's life - this is nothing new. It's also clear that awareness of gender stereotypes arises early in life too.

Research done in 2007 among three to five-year-olds found that at an early age, these kids were able to identify "girl toys" and "boy toys" - and predict whether their parents would approve or disapprove of their choice. In 2011, an American study of children aged between six and 10-years-old found that the stereotype that "maths is for boys" starts quite young.

But much of the research we looked at showed us that there are many things that influence children's establishment of gender norms and stereotypes. Some of these things we do without thinking can have a big impact - like switching on the TV.

TV, Toys and KIDS

One study we looked at found that the more TV children of both sexes watched, the more likely they were to believe that " boys are better ". For little boys, watching television appears to reinforce their already positive self-regard, while for girls, watching television appears to dampen it.

For boys, watching television appears to reinforce their already positive self-regard. Picture: Getty Images

This is concerning given that there are more than twice as many male characters as there are female characters on kid's TV shows.

But the type of TV shows our kids are watching can also have an influence on the type of play that they engage in: boys watching violent and superhero programs were more likely to play in gender stereotyped games; and for both boys and girls, watching Disney princesses waft about was associated with higher levels of female gender-stereotypical behaviour.

Relatedly, there is also evidence toys are now more divided by gender than they were 50 years ago. What is concerning about this, is that certain types of toys like Lego and other construction toys typically marketed to boys, are thought to build skills that help mathematical reasoning.

Unpicking the myth of Testosterone Rex

According to some, this may underpin the under-representation of women in maths and science. One minister in the UK said that " toys marketed to boys boosted interest in science and maths " and in the process, girls are discouraged from taking up maths and engineering jobs.

While there's no specific research examining the relationship between toys and outcomes for boys, it's important to note that stereotypes can work against boys as well as girls.

For example, one study among early childhood teachers in Spain showed many perceived girls as more caring and helpful than boys, and indeed, teachers expected this behaviour from girls. But boys exhibiting prosocial behaviour like this were considered surprising - even sometimes strange.

MEANWHILE IN AUSTRALIA

But what about geographical or cultural context?

What is found in one country or context may not be necessarily applicable to us here in Australia. Most research of this type has been conducted in the US, and little research has been conducted domestically.

However, we only have to visit the toy section in many of our shops to see how gender delineated toys, and play, has become.

According to research, toys marketed to boys boosted interest in science and maths. Picture: Getty Images

But the process of categorisation isn't one we can easily get way from. It's an essential element of the human need to make sense of our world. It's when these categories are then assigned rigid stereotypes, attitudes or beliefs about roles, behaviours or even worth, that they become problematic.

We can never remove terms and categories that are a normal part of life such as "boys" and "girls", nor should we.

However, research does suggest that by minimising these distinctions on the basis of gender and making individual attributes and skills a priority, we can help reduce stereotypes, discrimination and bias, and instead, build inclusive behaviours in our children.

Banner image: Shutterstock

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Dr Tania KingSenior Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne

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We all know that children are like little detectives. They are constantly seeking to classify and categorise the world around them in order to make sense of it. Part of a child's development is the process of beginning to understand, and grapple with, the complex concept of gender.

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This thesis by a local academic details the construction of femininity in Singapore education.

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Kho. (2004). Construction of femininity - Girls' education, 1959-2000.

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An intersectionality view : There is more to it than gender bias

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An intersectionality view : There is more to it than gender bias

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This TED talk by Kimberle Crenshaw gives an insight into looking at gender bias with an eye of intersectionality. When we try to address gender stereotyping and gender bias within the classroom, it would be good to look further and see whether there is more to the gender bias- an intersectionality of race, class , income and the other identity markers.

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The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw | TED

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This video shows the viewpoints of a few school leaders, students and teachers from co-ed and single sex schools on how these different school settings affect the perceptions and overall education of boys and girls.

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Single Sex Schools vs Coed Schools Debate

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Single-sex education: What does research tell us?

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Single-sex education: What does research tell us?

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This article reviews some of the findings from research on single-sex education.

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Smyth. (2010). Single-sex education- What does research tell us.

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Judith Butler: Your behavior creates your gender

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Judith Butler: Your behavior creates your gender

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This video talks about how gender is "performative" and not something you are born with.

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Judith Butler: Your Behavior Creates Your Gender | Big Think

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A short discussion on the status of the gender gap in Singapore.

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The Status Of Women In The Future | Future Forward | Channel NewsAsia

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Gender Ideology and it's influence of educational choices.

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Gender Ideology and it's influence of educational choices.

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This study based in Netherlands explores how gender ideology impacts adolescents' beliefs about their competence, occupational values and subject preferences.

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Boys and girls educational choices in secondary education The role of gender ideology

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How early does gender stereotyping influence childrens' interests

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How early does gender stereotyping influence childrens' interests

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This report on a study done regarding 6 year old childrens' evaluation of a gender's intellectual abilities show how at an early age stereotyping begins to shape a child's interests and narrows down their future career options.

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This 2011 article written by Teo You Yenn, an NTU professor who is also a board member of AWARE( Association of Women for Action and Researcher ), talks about the gender stereotyping themes that emerged from the school reflection stories of students in her "Sociology of Gender" class. While she agrees that gender gaps in education have significantly narrowed down in Singapore, she believes that there is much scope for work for teachers and schools to ensure gender equality

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In past decades, we have seen more gender equality in education. Gender gaps in terms of mean years of schooling and as highest levels of education attainment have narrowed. In younger cohorts, we see no significant difference in overall education outcomes.

Yet, in the university classroom, I still see some stereotypical differences in how women and men participate. Beyond the classroom, gendered differences persist in the "choices" young women and men feel they should make about study, careers and family. Young men continue to feel great pressure to pursue breadwinning as their main role and caring for children as secondary; young women still recognize that they have primary responsibilities in the home, even as they are also increasingly expected to do wage work.

How can this be? How can we see increasing educational equality and persistent inequalities between men and women in educational, familial and work environments? My past research has focused on how structural conditions-differences in the support workers who are mothers or fathers receive, for example-influence the choices people can and cannot make.

During the course on the Sociology of Gender that I teach, students have alerted me to how their childhood experiences shaped how they think, speak, move and engage with the world. In particular, they have been taught that girls and boys are different, and have different standards for appropriate behaviour. Boys are supposed to be stronger than girls; boys are expected to be somewhat rough while girls are expected to be gentle and docile.

As outmoded as these lessons in gender stereotypes may seem, when I asked students to write reflection notes about their school experiences, three key themes emerged.

First, gender was pervasively used to organise students, with lasting unintended effects on their self-image.

Students recalled being either divided up or paired together on the basis of gender. They were sometimes teamed up with kids of the same gender and other times with kids of different gender. In both cases, gender was the basis of organization: if pairs were to be boy-girl, then all pairs in the class would be boy-girl; if girls and boys in the class are to be separated, then all girls would form teams with girls and all boys with other boys. Teachers sometimes made clear that gender was the principle for division; for example, a girl might be paired up with another girl and be told that if they make too much noise that they would be "punished" by being paired to a boy.

Beyond forming lines and teams, students recalled segregation around activities. Particularly at older ages-secondary school and junior college-they recalled being divided up for Physical Education. Beyond segregation, there was differentiation: girls and boys played entirely different games. In the process, certain sports became marked as "girls' sports" (e.g. netball) and others as "boys' sports" (e.g. soccer).

Teachers sometimes openly signaled that they expected different things from kids depending on their gender. Boys were more frequently asked to help with tasks like moving tables. Girls received more attention from teachers in Design and Technology classes while boys were more often ignored when they asked for help.

As a teacher, I empathise with the need to sort students into groups to facilitate activities. Gender is convenient, and most teachers probably do not intend for girls and boys to feel that they have radically different capabilities as a result. Nonetheless, that students remember these seemingly trivial details so vividly years later suggest that, intended or not, students did pick up on the message that girls and boys have different capabilities. Girls were far more likely to be given the impression that teachers expected less from them in terms of physical strength; boys were more likely to be given the impression that they had to be technically competent in order to be "real" boys. One student wrote about how, as someone transitioning from an all-girls to a co-ed school, she was initially surprised that tasks like moving tables were now someone else's role rather than all students' responsibility; over time, she too took for granted that she was less capable at helping than the boys.

A second theme that emerged in my students' writings, particularly by the women, reflects their strong memories of bodily discipline.

In every school in Singapore, students wear school uniforms that are already gender-specific. Boys wear shirts and pants while girls wear blouses and either pinafores or skirts. This difference sets up different items of clothing to police. Importantly, there appears to be more policing of skirts than pants. Teachers and girls battle over the length of their skirts. Teachers are daily vigilant, while girls find creative ways to lengthen and shorten their skirts to pass inspection at one time and to satisfy their own preferences at another. Students point out that boys in fact also modified their clothes-tapering their pants, for instance, for a "skinnier" look. Nonetheless, no one recalled pants being contentious in the way skirts were.

As students got older, they were also policed on their bras. Teachers, including men, made remarks about bra straps and the colour of bras under girls' blouses, creating intense feelings of shame.

Beyond clothing, the disciplining of the body also focused attention on comportment "appropriate" to one's gender category. Boys received the message that they should be physically strong. Women students recalled being told to smile more, to be gentle; they heard teachers praise students for being "sweet" or "pretty."

Girls were constantly reminded to sit with their legs closed; girls from all-girls' schools reported slightly more freedom, but only insofar as there were no boys around. This taught them that gendered performances were about "protecting" themselves from boys. Boys may not have received such disciplining in their postures, but they are an important part of this equation: in this schema, they are cast as potential aggressors.

Finally, the violation of gender norms came with negative consequences.

Shame was the major tool. Teachers used it in ways that elicited self-policing and mutual disciplining. A student recalled being told by a teacher that girls should not get too sweaty and smelly because boys would not like them; another remembered being told that girls should not be too noisy. Several students recalled heterosexual teasing-in which befriending people across gender lines invited taunts about them being somehow romantically involved. These came both from teachers and other kids, and caused them to back away from cross-gender friendships.

We know from sociological research that boys are less constrained in ways that may be harmful insofar as they do not receive adequate instruction on the need for respect for others' space and agency; adults' lower expectations of their behaviors, often through the "boys will be boys" lens, can also lead to lower levels of academic performance and self-control. On the other hand, we also know that adolescent girls and young women suffer disproportionately from issues of low self-esteem and negative body image.

In contemporary Singapore, many now speak of the importance of gender equality. Some claims can be made about the strides we have made as a society. Yet, significant differences persist in the roles men and women play at home; inequalities persist in the realm of work in terms of positions, trajectories, and salaries; and stark unevenness persists in the realm of public service and formal leadership. These differences are often attributed to varying "tastes" and "choices." It may certainly be true that women and men are drawn to different practices. But "tastes" and "choices" are social phenomenon-they are cultivated and constrained by social forces; they are articulated in the face of differential social options and conditions.

My students' reflections reveal the depth of gender differentiation in schools. They signal that much is happening with kids, to kids, in these important institutions, that shapes them to think of themselves as having limited options: "I can't do this because I'm a girl; I can't be that because I'm a boy."

To address gender equality in the "adult" world, we must rethink the environment we provide to children. Schools and teachers have crucial roles to play in disrupting, rather than perpetuating, the gender stereotypes that harm and limit our kids. Our youth have rich potential for capacities in a multitude of areas. If we want a better world for our kids, as we imply we do when we open up educational opportunities to all, we have to make more conscious effort to transcend the limitations of our own experiences. We must do our best to nurture all their talents, not just those that fit adults' narrow imaginings of appropriate gender roles.
Teo You Yenn is a board member at the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), Associate Professor in Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University, and author of the book Neoliberal Morality in Singapore: How family policies make state and society (Routledge, 2011). This article first appeared in The Online Citizen on 29 October 2015.

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In past decades, we have seen more gender equality in education. Gender gaps in terms of mean years of schooling and as highest levels of education attainment have narrowed. In younger cohorts, we see no significant difference in overall education outcomes. Yet, in the university classroom, I still see some stereotypical differences in how women and men participate.