[Matthew.]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

My daughter who is 5 can tell men from women easily, even when the men are in makeup and such. Led to quite an embarassing situation on a bus actually. A person got on, little dress, perfect hair and makeup...and my daughter who is 5 pointed at them and said quite loudly 'thats a boy mammy, why is he wearing a dress'. I was a bit mortified but the guy was fine about it. Sat talking to her for a bit and was telling her about how some boys like to wear makeup and look 'like girls' and such. Still never found out if he was just a feminine guy, trans or a drag queen actually.

It’s great how kids aren’t really taught gender stereotypes nowadays in such an aggressive format as they were before, and the difference between what i was taught and observing teaching when i’m at work is really quite something.

i remember being told at primary school that “blue is for boys and pink is for girls.” In addition to this, the word “gay” was banned, no matter what context it was used in. I’m 25, so this is probably going back around 2000-2002, which is actually quite a long time ago thinking about it.

not too long ago, the school had an assembly where a female firefighter, a male nurse and a policewoman came in to try and tackle gender stereotypes in the workplace and I think it worked. I would also say that I am also an example of fighting gender stereotypes in the workplace to an extent because previously, male primary school teachers/teaching assistants were almost unheard of, whereas there are increasingly more and more men taking on the job, which I think is fantastic. I was never taught by a man until secondary school, but I think that equality is so important