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Last week, I shared my conversation with Jo-Ann Finkelstein, the author of the new book, Sexism & Sensibility, Raising Empowered, Resilient Girls in the Modern World (pre-order it here!),
One of the things that’s most confusing about sexism, Finkelstein writes, is not knowing for sure that it's happening.
“We've internalized the sexism ourselves,” Finkelstein told me. “Maybe I'm overreacting? Maybe I'm reading into this?”
Like, when you get an obnoxious email at work and wonder, “Would this person have sent this same note to a man?”
Or when your 8-year-old daughter starts worrying about whether she should shave her legs, and you start worrying about the messages she’s getting from her summer reading choices.
When I talked to Finkelstein about how she talks to her own kids, she shared a story about a conversation she had with her daughter after watching several seasons of MasterChef Junior.
“I found it much easier to point out sexism with my son than with my daughter,” Finkelstein told me.
“With my son, it just seemed obvious that he should learn this from the beginning. But I didn't have the fear that it would hurt his identity, because he was this privileged boy. He wasn’t getting the sexist attitudes that my daughter was going to get.”
“So with her, I hesitated more, because I really feared that I would scare her or that I would make her feel inferior somehow.”
This was one of the reasons Finkelstein wrote the book, she said. She’d looked for books about how you talk about sexism with your kids, and how you prepared them for it, and there was nothing.
“There was this real gap in the literature,” she said. “So that put the idea in my head. Like, maybe one of one of these days, I'm going to write the book.”
So I asked Finkelstein: What’s the strategy when you're watching something with you kid? Do you just say, “Oh, that was a really sexist thing that just happened?”
She told me, after watching the show for several seasons, she’d already noticed the bias in the judges’ attitudes between the girls and the boys. And it was clear that her daughter was noticing something too.
“Look, all the chefs, all the judges are men,” Finkelstein told her daughter.
Finkelstein pointed out how the judges would say to the boys, “Oh, my goodness, this is brilliant. You're going to have this fantastic restaurant.” But to the girls, they would say, “Oh, this is fantastic. Is it a fluke? Do you think you could do it again?”
“There are endless opportunities for us to point out sexism,” Finkelstein said. “Pick your moments where you can say, “Hey, did you notice how that man didn't even look at me and he only talked to daddy?
“Sometimes that happens because men sometimes don't respect women, or they don't think women have the ability to be in charge.
I really appreciated this honest discussion with Jo-Ann. It boggles my mind that we still have to find ways to talk about this but I was so glad to have some skillful guidance around this.
I’m already talking about this with my young grandchildren, a boy and a girl, just subtly introducing that “no” is a complete sentence, just like I did with both my daughters. Already they are spoken to so different, one is “amazing” and the other “pretty!”
I’ve seen this with my nieces and nephews — even in my progressive family, there are subtle (and overt!) references to looks and behavior that we need to keep calling attention to.
You're the best! Thank you for highlighting this issue. It is SO MUCH easier to hope Girl Power will trump (pardon the expression) all the unsavory and unfair crap girls will encounter than to process sexism directly with them, but unfortunately, it's not enough. Parents are in such a great position to make sure their daughters don't internalize sexist messages, or at least reduce the harm they do to their sense of self and self esteem.
Really appreciate your work on this, esp bc I *do educate myself quite a bit on how to talk about race with my daughter (who is Black biracial), but I don't think as much about how to talk about sexism in concrete ways.
This is exactly what the research on racism also finds--that if you don't talk about it they *are internalizing ideas and they *are forming attitudes, you just don't see it. So pointing it out and talking about it is key!
Totally. I reference that in the book and it comes out in some of the stories with girls of color who are trying to figure out if its their race or gender or both that's bringing on the harassment or poor treatment.
I talk about sexism a LOT with my kids (one boy and three girls)! It depends on the topic but often it will come up when watching old movies or reading old books - "wow, did you notice how she didn't do anything wrong but she apologized to HIM!? That's not right" or "He didn't listen to her at all! He just did what he wanted."
My kids will often say "wow when was this published?" when a book talks about men going to work and mothers dropping kids at school, for example. I am careful to point out that many people still have those expectations of sex roles and that women are still expected to do more work at home than men, and that it's not fair. Now it is usually the kids (especially the older kids 9-13) who will say "That's sexist!"
This issue of acknowledging sexism and worrying it will make my daughter feel “inferior” is exactly my issue! Love this.
I really appreciated this honest discussion with Jo-Ann. It boggles my mind that we still have to find ways to talk about this but I was so glad to have some skillful guidance around this.
I’m already talking about this with my young grandchildren, a boy and a girl, just subtly introducing that “no” is a complete sentence, just like I did with both my daughters. Already they are spoken to so different, one is “amazing” and the other “pretty!”
"No is a complete sentence." Love it!
Agree--we resist a lot of "cute" modifiers around here, too!
I’ve seen this with my nieces and nephews — even in my progressive family, there are subtle (and overt!) references to looks and behavior that we need to keep calling attention to.
Absolutely!
So fantastic!
You're the best! Thank you for highlighting this issue. It is SO MUCH easier to hope Girl Power will trump (pardon the expression) all the unsavory and unfair crap girls will encounter than to process sexism directly with them, but unfortunately, it's not enough. Parents are in such a great position to make sure their daughters don't internalize sexist messages, or at least reduce the harm they do to their sense of self and self esteem.
Really appreciate your work on this, esp bc I *do educate myself quite a bit on how to talk about race with my daughter (who is Black biracial), but I don't think as much about how to talk about sexism in concrete ways.
This is exactly what the research on racism also finds--that if you don't talk about it they *are internalizing ideas and they *are forming attitudes, you just don't see it. So pointing it out and talking about it is key!
Totally. I reference that in the book and it comes out in some of the stories with girls of color who are trying to figure out if its their race or gender or both that's bringing on the harassment or poor treatment.
I’m excited to read it!
I talk about sexism a LOT with my kids (one boy and three girls)! It depends on the topic but often it will come up when watching old movies or reading old books - "wow, did you notice how she didn't do anything wrong but she apologized to HIM!? That's not right" or "He didn't listen to her at all! He just did what he wanted."
My kids will often say "wow when was this published?" when a book talks about men going to work and mothers dropping kids at school, for example. I am careful to point out that many people still have those expectations of sex roles and that women are still expected to do more work at home than men, and that it's not fair. Now it is usually the kids (especially the older kids 9-13) who will say "That's sexist!"
Thanks so much for sharing these thoughtful ideas about how to have these conversations!