How do we socialize our kids?

How do we socialize our
kids?
When equal play leads to equal pay

From a very young age, our
children are trapped in boxes

Smart like Daddy
Cute like Mummy

Clothes convey specific
messages

Gap comes under fire for sexist
back-to-school advertisement

Gendered clothes: autonomy vs
dependence
• Boys’ clothes are supposed to be comfortable
while girls’ clothes ought to be pretty.
• Girls’ clothes hinder movement and
exploration (dresses or skirts). Adults tend to
tell girls to be careful (eat properly, don’t climb
trees…) to respect their clothes.
• Boys have faster attach models (scratches,…)
when girls need help with laces and delicate
outfit.
• On schools’ special days, girls are encouraged
to conform to princesses or traditional outfits
when boys have more range of choice.
Source: Rapport sur l'égalité entre les
filles et les garçons dans les modes
d'accueil de la petite enfance

And girls have very soon a dress
code for schools
• Frequently, female students are told to "dress for their
bodies” which is an issue outside of the schools jurisdiction.
• Wearing shorts and a tank top does not impede upon a
female student's ability to learn, nor should it impede upon
the ability of a teacher to teach .
• This strict dress code perpetuates rape culture by suggesting
to girls that their way of dress is punishable and justifies their
sexualization.
• It suggests that it is their responsibility to dress modestly as
to keep from “distracting” their male counterparts.
• This is a ridiculous sentiment and is offensive to both males
and females. The true issue lies in a culture that sexualizes
girls, not in the supposed tantalizing nature of spaghetti-
straps.

Children movies shape our
children psyche

Disney princesses teach our
girls who they should be

The widespread exposure of young girls to Disney princesses could lead young
children, and girls especially, to believe that they cannot do certain activities and
jobs that they associate as being more masculine in nature.

And children cartoons mostly
portray male as protagonists

Books have an important role in
children’s socialization
• Women in children books are
mostly non working mums.
• When they work, they don’t
have children.
• And they occupy
stereotypical activities.

Even children literature vehicle
sexist stereotypes
• Compared to females, males are representednearly twice as
often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters.
• Researchers talk about a 'symbolic annihilation of women’
• "One thing that surprised us is that females' representations
did not consistently improve from 1900 to 2000; in the mid
part of the century it was actually more unequal. Books
became more male dominated."
• Source: Gender in Twentieth-CenturyChildren’s Books
• Patterns of Disparity in Titles and Central Characters

Masculine is universal
• In popular children’s books featuring animated
animals, 100% of them have male characters, but
only 33% have female characters.
• Male characters are little described according to
gender attributes while female are (clothes, hairdress,
jewels)
• The average number of books featuring male
characters in the title of the book is 36.5% versus
17.5% for female characters.
• Female characters in books that are for “everyone”
are often marginalized, stereotyped or one-
dimensional.
Source: Soraya
Chemaly. Huff Post

Even in higher quality children’s literature,
more subtle stereotypes remain
• The adjectives used are different: beautiful,
sweet, weak, scared vs big, horrible, fierce,
great, brave, proud.
• Girls are often left out of the adventure, the
thrill, the plot.
• And it is easier to find an adventurous girl than
a fearful boy.
• Children receive the impression that girls are
not very important because no one has
bothered to write books about them.
• Mothers label gender-neutral characters in
picture books as male.
• We have a tendency to think of people or
creatures as male unless otherwise indicated.
• men are people, women are women.

Boys are not encouraged to immerse
themselves in books about girls
• Exposing boys to female protagonists is
crucial but difficult, given that these
characters are highly under-represented in
children's literature.
• 57% of children's books published each
year feature male characters, whereas
only 31% feature central female
characters.
Source: Soraya
Chemaly. Huff Post

Books for girls are for girls only
• Hale created the Twitter
hashtag #BoysReadGirls and
encouraged users to
generate a list of books
featuring female protagonists
and start a conversation
about the issue.
• "The more we read books
about people different from
us, the more empathy we
have for them," Hale
told Mic.

Children’s ability to cross-gender empathize is
a one-way street — girls have to do it and boys
learn not to.
• Hale agrees that exposure to books in which women are
secondary or erased altogether only reiterates a cultural
landscape in which young women are valued more for
their appearance and sex appeal than their intellect.
• As she wrote on her website, this perpetuates "the myth that
women only have things of interest to say to girls while men's
voices are universally important."
• Failing to encourage boys to empathize with women and
reinforcing the notion that women only exist to bolster men's
experiences creates a reality in which "boys aren't expected
to understand and empathize with the female population
of the world," Hale wrote. This, in turn, "leads to rape
culture."

Media misrepresentations contribute in boys to
a heightened inability to empathize with others
• Boys who grow up seeing themselves everywhere as
powerful and central just by virtue of being boys, often white,
are critically impaired in many ways.
• It’s a rude shock to many when things don’t turn out the way
they were told they should.
• Failure to understand why rules apply or why accountability is
a thing.
• It should mean something to parents that the teenagers with
the highest likelihood of sexually assaulting a peer and feel
no responsibility for their actions are young white boys from
higher-income families.
• The real boy crisis we should be talking about is entitlement
and outdated notions of masculinity, both of which are
persistently responsible for leaving
boys confused and unprepared for contemporary adulthood.
Source: Soraya
Chemaly. Huff Post

Even class books and material
are biased
• "Children's books are filled with social constructs: the girl is a
nurse; the boy is a firefighter.”
• Only 5% of texts studied in French highschool have been written by
women. Reference to female philosophers don’t surpass 1%.
• Only 11% of French universities are run by women, 10% in Europe
when 59% of university students are women.
• Source:
– http://www.terrafemina.com/emploi-a-carrieres/actu/articles/4827-
enseignement-universitaire-les-femmes-sous-representees.html
– http://www.terrafemina.com/societe/societe/articles/32809-du-sexisme-
ordinaire-dans-les-manuels-de-francais-.html
• Yet, they are supposed to convey society’s values.

Toys exaggerate gender division
• Toys most associated with
boys are related to fighting or
aggression (wrestlers,
soldiers, guns, etc.), and the
toys most associated with
girls are related to appearance
(Barbie dolls and accessories,
ballerina costumes, makeup,
jewelry, etc.).

Toys for boys are more diverse
than girls’
• They are more associated to the
external world and tend to be
manipulated.
• Girls’ toys are less diverse and mostly
linked to domestic or “maternal”
activities.
• Girls' toys (shops, kitchens, dolls) invite
to role playing and develop verbal
abilities.
• Boy’s toys of construction encourage
manipulation and exploration to get
spatial and analytical skills.
• Interior vs exterior, danger vs security,
competition vs cooperation.

Young children don’t make any
differences
• Boys from 2 or 3 are as likely as girls to use dolls.
• Researcher Isabelle Cherney found that half of boys
ages 5-13 picked “girl” and “boy” toys equally...
unless they were being watched.
• They were especially concerned about what their
fathers would think of them if they saw them.
• Over time, boys’ interests in toys and media become
more rigidly masculinized, whereas girls’ stay
relatively open-ended and flexible.
• Think of the implications of storytelling on that pattern
and what it means for social skills development,
adaptability, work-life issues and more.

No dolls for boys
• Boys are especially stigmatized for crossing
the gender aisle in toys and clothes – a fact
that seems to arise from a deep misogyny,
homophobia and transphobia: a suspicion of
any boy who embraces femininity, which is
considered synonymous with weakness and
subordination.
• There are far too many stories of children
being bullied or taunted for selecting toys
that are perceived as gender non-
conforming.

Segmenting the toy market brings greater
profits by making it harder for parents to pass
down items between siblings of a different sex
• A few years back, ads were more neutrals but this division of
the market allows to multiply the sales.
• In the US, regulations around TV advertising to children were
stripped away in 1984.
• Imagine a world where we would segregate left handed and
right handed by colour, verbally and children notice that
primary caregivers are left handed and building sites are
done by right handers. How would you see the world?
• Young children learn there are 2 categories of people and
they learn very fast how to differentiate them from 2 years
old.

Colours: the dictatorship of pink
and blue aisles

Paoletti: pink and blue is a very
recent concept
• In the Victorian era, both boy and girl babies were dressed in white
gowns and there was no attempt to signal a child's gender.
• In the first half of the 20th century, rules began emerging for pink
and blue, but they were loose. Pink was a lighter version of red, a
rather masculine colour.
• By the 50s, pink had become strongly associated with femininity,
but boys still often wore it, while by the 70s, the two colours
certainly didn't dominate the toy market.
• During the heyday of unisex parenting, which lasted from 1965 to
1985, mainstream shopping catalogues in the US carried no pink
clothing for toddlers, and only a few pink items for babies.
• Barbie doll in 1959 and her pink princess image anchored even
more the pink dictatorship in our spirits.
• Babies are not “naturally” attracted to one colour or another.
(Melissa Hines)

Pink helps to lure girls away from more active
toys and games that encourage the
development of spatial and analytical skills

Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces
Gender Stereotypes
BOYS
GIRLS

And girls are sexualized earlier
and earlier…

EARLY SEXUALIZATION:
A GUIDE FOR PARENTS
OF PRETEEN GIRLS

As caregivers, which
attitudes do we encourage?

The illusion of gender neutral
parenting
• When women did not know the sex of their baby
during pregnancy, no particular pattern was
perceived.
• But women who knew the sex of their unborn baby
described the movements differently:
– Males were active vigorous, strong.
– Females were NOT violent, NOT excessively energetic...
• Even the voice mums used to speak to the baby is
different.
• Parents of boys expressed more pride in the news
and parents of girls expressed more happiness.
• So children are unequal even before birth.
• And then parenting begins.

Caregivers interpret differently
babies’ reactions
• In an experiment, two
groups were shown the
same video of a crying
baby.
• One was said to be a girl,
the other a boy.
• The “girl” group thought
the baby was crying out of
fear when the “boy” group
thought it expressed anger.

When mothers underestimate girls and
overestimate boys
• Research from Francoise
Heritier: Gendered expectations
also bias mothers’ perceptions
of their infants’ physical abilities:
– Mothers from 6-8 months old babies
asked to estimate steepness of
slope their babies could manage.
– Girls and boys with same crawling
ability but mothers underestimated
girls’ and overestimated boys’.

Even though they sincerely claim to hold the two sexes
as equal, parents simultaneously devalue the feminine
and limit boys’ access to it.
• Parents talk less to baby boys and are less likely to use numbers when
speaking to little girls.
• Babies are sensitive to emotional reactions of caregivers: facial expressions
and tone of voice according to what toys should be approached or
avoided.
• Mothers talk more to girls than to boys and they talk about emotions
differently to the two sexes.
• Parents’ implicit attitudes about gender might be subtly transmitted to their
children.
• They also learn from what is not said but expressed in more subtle ways,
even if this contradicts the spoken message.
• Parents encourage gender-types activities and play, discourages cross-
gender behaviour.
• Only 25% of 3year old girls thought heir mother would want them to play
with a baseball or skateboard compared with 80% of 3yer old boys.
• Masculinity is seen as something that need to work on to accomplish.
• Cross-gender behaviour is seen as less acceptable in boys than in girls:
unlike term tomboy, nothing positive about being a “sissy”.

As well as gender stereotypes, children may be
learning not to follow their interests or preferences for
certain toys for fear of being teased.

Classroom management techniques rewards
obedience versus assertiveness, which puts
highly active children at a disadvantage
• Males demand and receive more attention from their teachers and
therefore receive more specific, instructive feedback from teachers
(Erden & Wolfgang, 2004).
• In comparison, females become less demanding of the teacher’s
attention; that results in lower levels of achievement and self-
esteem, which therefore limits their career goals to more traditional,
nurturing, and often lower-paying careers.

Teachers use a different
language for girls and boys
• “honey” and “sweetie” are used to address
girls and “you guys” when speaking to the
entire class.
• Teachers interact more often with boys than
girls: ask them to speak more often, give
them more time to answer and spend more
time answering to their interventions.
• Teachers interrupt more frequently boys than
girls.
• Yet, teachers and caregivers are rarely
trained about gender socialization.

Boys and girls are socialized to
different activities
• Boys are encouraged to team sports involving
competition and space occupancy while girls
are encouraged to engage in individual
activities with less competition.
• Competition teaches to manage failure and
success, has an impact of self-esteem and
coping with risk taking.
• Technicity vs elegance
• Football outside vs Dolls inside
• Boys learn to own and occupy the space,
girls to share it.
• An agitated little girl will get more scolded than
a boy.
• Girls are more orientated towards calm, sitting
activities while boys are engaged in mobile
activities.

Gendered storytelling
• Parents discuss more emotional
experiences with their daughters:
they refer more to sadness with
them and to anger with boys.
• Sons are more likely to be told
stories of autonomy and
achievement.
• Daughters are more likely to be told
stories of relationships or support.
• Fathers more often tell stories of
mastery and success.
• Mothers’ stories are usually a direct
expression of emotion.

Fathers are more likely than mothers to
react negatively to cross-gender
behavior, especially with sons.

And what do children see at
home?

Household chores are still not evenly
shared

The more she earns, the more
housework she does
• In families with children in which both spouses work
full-time, women do about twice as much child care
and housework as men.
• Mabel Ulrich: Not so easy to be the husband of a
modern woman: she is everything his mother wasn’t
and nothing she was. He might agree intellectually but
emotionally reluctant.
• Her implicit mind, her social identity as mother or wife
triggers her to load the washing machine etc...
• Many mothers eliminate from their mental decision-
space work choices that would require their husbands
more responsibility for the children.

550 14Globally, girls aged 5–14 spend 550 million hours every
day on household chores, 160 million more hours
than boys their age spend. A girl aged 5–9 spends an
average of almost four hours per week on household
chores while older girls aged 10–14 spend around nine
hours per week on these activities. In some regions and
countries, these numbers are twice as high.
MILLION HOURS / DAY HOURS / WEEK
In the three countries with the highest
prevalence of involvement in household
chores, on average, more than half of girls
aged 5–14 spend at least 14 hours per week,
or at least two hours per day, on household
chores (Somalia 64 per cent, Ethiopia 56
per cent and Rwanda 48 per cent).
Globally girls spend 160 million more hours on
household chores than boys their age
Harnessing the
Powerof Data for Girls
Taking stock and looking ahead to 2030

50 2/3
countries, these numbers are twice as high.
COOK AND CLEAN IN THE HOME
per cent and Rwanda 48 per cent).
Worldwide, girls aged 5–9 and 10–14 spend,
respectively, 30 per cent and 50 per cent more of
their time helping around the house than boys
of the same age. In some regions, the gender
disparities can be even more severe: In the
Middle East and North Africa and South Asia
regions, girls aged 5–14 spend nearly twice as
many hours per week on household chores as
boys of the same age.
In countries with available data on chores by type,
almost two thirds of girls aged 5–14 (64 per cent)
help with cooking or cleaning the house. The
second most commonly performed task among
girls this age is shopping for the household (50 per
cent), followed by fetching water or ﬁrewood (46
per cent), washing clothes (45 per cent), caring for
other children (43 per cent) and other household
tasks (31 per cent).
% MORE TIME SPENT
ON CHORES THAN BOYS
Harnessing the
Powerof Data for Girls
Taking stock and looking ahead to 2030

Construction of gender
stereotypes for children
• Children begin to form concepts of gender beginning around age 2, and
most children know if they are a boy or girl by the age of 3 (Martin & Ruble,
2004).
• Between the ages of 3 and 5 years, children develop their gender identity
and begin to understand what it means to be male or female.
• Almost immediately after becoming gender aware, children begin
developing stereotypes, which they apply to themselves and others, in an
attempt to give meaning to and gain understanding about their own
identity.
• These stereotypes are fairly well developed by 5 years of age, and become
rigidly defined between 5 and 7 years of age (Martin & Ruble, 2004),
making the preschool years a critical period to deal with gender
stereotypes.
• Stereotypes and sexism limit potential growth and development (Narahara,
1998) because internalizing negative stereotypes impacts self-esteem and
ultimately, academic performance. Long-term gender bias effects become
most apparent in students during adolescence (Carlson, Egeland, & Sroufe,
2004).

Through our choice of toys, clothes, activities
and verbal or nonverbal messages, we foster
the development of different skills
GIRLS
• Playing dress-ups
encourages imagination
and offers opportunities
for the development of
social skills as children
engage with one another,
acting out often elaborate
made-up stories with one
another.
BOYS
• Activities such as riding
scooters help children develop
physically and personally,
teaching skills like balance,
spatial awareness and
confidence while strengthening
their muscles.
• Constructing model toys and
building things helps develop
fine motor skills, problem
solving and language
development and fosters
concentration.
• Children gain self-esteem in
successfully finishing a project.

Through our choice of toys, clothes, activities
and verbal or nonverbal messages, we foster
the development of different skills
GIRLS
• Conform and be quiet
• Direct energy towards
physical appearance
• Be of service
• Use seduction as a way
to get what you want
• Need to overcompensate
and overdeliver
BOYS
• Be confident
• Analytical and spatial
skills
• Take risk
• Speak up
• Independence
• Unearned confidence in
their abilities

Early sexualization damages
children
• Girls feel worse about their
bodies and have lower self-
esteem after exposure to
sexualization.

More than 70% of girls, starting as young as
third grade, are unhappy with their bodies.
• Many report dieting by age 12. Boys,
in contrast, are much happier with
their bodies.
• Combine those statistics with the
studies showing that girls who were
asked to play with Barbies have worse
body image after a brief play period
compared to girls who were asked to
play with normally-proportioned dolls.

Academic aspirations start to differ
• The hidden messages that girls receive
about math, science, and technology
shape their self-concept, confidence, and
interest in those subjects (Ebach, et al.
2009).
• These messages can come from bias in
the media, from family or teachers who
may exhibit lower expectations for
females in these subject areas, or even
from the medium itself, as in the case of
computer software demonstrating a high
level of gender bias favoring males
(McNair, KirovaPetrova, & Bhargava,
2001).

Ask children to draw some
professionals…

…and you would be surprised
• The children were asked to draw a nurse, a
builder, a lawyer and a banker, and also the
job they aspire to when they grow up.
• Where gender was identifiable, the drawings
showed a clear gender skew for specific
roles:
– 81% of children drew nurses as female;
– 88% of children drew builders as male;
– 80% of children drew bankers as male;
– The most gender balanced of the professions, 65%
of children drew lawyers as male.

Impact on future perspectives
• When asked to nominate jobs that they
would not want, both girls and boys
rejected more traditionally female
occupations than male and neutral
careers.
• Girls as young as 4 have already
internalized the belief that women’s
work is neither as valuable nor as
desirable as men’s.

Because it’s 2017!
• In 2017, many mothers mow the lawn,
many fathers push prams, many brothers
enjoy cooking and sisters own drills, many
uncles are hairdressers, many aunts are
doctors.
• Why aren’t these realities reflected in toy
shops?

Children benefit from having access to a range of toys
as this maximises their opportunities to learn and
develop important skills in different areas.
• All children should have toys that foster
nurturance, empathy, and perspective
taking like dolls, fine motor skills and
spatial skills — like building toys and
puzzles- and hand-eye coordination like
ball toys.
• No children should have toys that model
unattainable bodies like Barbies or foster
violence and aggression like guns.

If you want to develop children's physical, cognitive,
academic,musical, and artistic skills, toys that are not
strongly gender-typed are more likely to do this.
• The toys rated as most likely to be
educational and to develop children’s
physical, cognitive, artistic, and other
skills were typically categorized as neutral
or moderately masculine.
• We concluded that strongly gender-typed
toys appear to be less supportive of
optimal development than neutral or
moderately gender-typed toys.

How should children ignore gender when they
continually watch it, hear it, see it, are clothed
in it, sleep in it, eat off it?
• But the wiring is soft,
not hard.
• It is flexible, malleable.
• And it will unravel.

Which initiatives are fighting
back?

Let Toys Be Toys campaign is asking the toy and publishing
industries to stop limiting children’s interests by promoting some
toys and books as only suitable for girls, and others only for boys.

Even Audi Spain ad for Christmas
was challenging stereotypes

Mattel has seen a 23% rise in sales after the
company changed Barbie from an exclusivelyblond
bombshell-style doll to one that represents a variety of
races and body types.

Mattel recently paired up with the
organization She Should Run to help
create a president Barbie

Citizen activism is fighting back

New children literature is
emerging

Feminist Heroes to Teach Kids Their
ABCs in Badass New Picturebook
A new illustrated children’s book
from iconic City Lights press, Rad American
Women A-Z, offers kids the chance to
educate themselves on women’s history and
the alphabet at the same time.
Written by Kate Schatz and illustrated
by Miriam Klein Stahl, the book was inspired
by Schatz’s two-year-old daughter.
As the writer told Mic, the book was created to
fill the “feminist-shaped hole in children's
literature,” and goes from A (for Angela Davis)
to Z (Zora Neale Hurston).

The most funded original book
to be crowdfunded…

The world's largest collection of books,
toys and movies for smart, confident, and
courageous girls

We should all be feminists book
is distributed to all students in
Swedish highschools

Superheroes promote the idea that anyone can do
good deeds, that hidden talents lie in us all, and that
one person can make a difference.

Superheroes validate our sense
of justice

#BANBOSSY banbossy.com girlscouts.org/banbossy
2
Name of character What does he talk about in the
movie? What subjects are
important to him?
What does he do in the movie?
And/or what does he most want
to accomplish?
How would you describe him
(e.g., caring, smart, powerful,
interesting)?
After you ﬁnish the movie, reﬂect on the three main male characters
and answer these questions individually or as a group:
Develop media literacy in your kids

Name of character What does she talk about in the
movie? What subjects are
important to her?
What does she do in the movie?
And/or what does she most want
to accomplish?
How would you describe her
(e.g., caring, smart, powerful,
interesting)?
Now reﬂect on the three main female characters
and answer these questions individually or as a group:
3

1
Movie Night:
You Be the Critic!
Speak (even a single word!)
Speak to a character of the same gender
Talk about love or relationships
Take the lead in a group
Dress in fancy or revealing clothing
Act aggressively or violently
Add your own:
Add your own:
While you watch the movie, tally
how many times male and female
characters do the following:

Join us to Ban Bossy
Characters I Love…
My name is:
My favorite character is:
From the movie/show:
I like this character because:

We are a storytelling species, and symbolic
representation and visibility are crucially
important to the way we structure society.
• Racebending advocates for media equality across a broad
spectrum of platforms and is a great resource.
• The CCBC publishes a helpful guide to multicultural lit for
children.
• The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media regularly
shares information about media equality and First Book, a
nonprofit that works to get books featuring diverse casts and
cultures into the hands of children from low income families,
recently launched its “Stories for All” program, which is worth
wholesale emulation.
• Common Sense Media also has a K-9 parents and educator
toolkit that helps children understand the media they are
consuming.
Source: Soraya
Chemaly. Huff Post

Recommendations for Teachers
• Any materials that promote gender stereotyped
play should be removed.
• Nonsexist books, on the other hand, produce
positive changes in self-concept, attitudes, and
behavior.
• Teachers are urged to critically evaluate books for
gender bias. However, rather than eliminating all
books with stereotypes, teachers can guide
children to recognize stereotypes and increase
independent critical thinking about gender and
perceptions of gender.

Recommendations for Teachers
• When planning learning experiences,
teachers can challenge potential stereotypes
by presenting nontraditional images and role
models.
• They might:
– request speakers from children’s families,
– feature unbiased books and materials,
– give equal praise and encouragement to females in
math and science and males
– Critically evaluate books for gender bias.

SOLUTION
Give your children equal chores and equal allowance. If your son and daughter
take turns setting the table and taking out the trash, they’ll grow up knowing that
women and men can—and should—split work evenly. Equally as important, show
your kids what 50/50 looks like. Seeing parents divvy up dishes and laundry
shapes children’s gender attitudes and career aspirations.
3
CHALLENGE GENDER
STEREOTYPES
SITUATION
Kids’ beliefs about themselves and others are shaped by the world around them,
and girls are often sent the wrong messages. Traditional girls’ toys focus on
appearance and caretaking, while boys’ toys focus on competition and spatial skills.9
Children’s books are twice as likely to feature a male character in the lead role.10
Kids are exposed to an average of eight hours of media every day, and women are
underrepresented or sexualized in much of that media.11
SOLUTION
Make sure your kids play with a variety of toys so they develop a range of
cognitive and social skills. Be thoughtful about what your kids read and
watch, and talk openly with them about the messages the media sends about
women and men.
DID YOU KNOW?
Of the top one hundred U.S. ﬁlms
in 2015, women accounted for
only 33 percent of all speaking
characters and only 22 percent
of protagonists.12
2 LeanInTogether.Org #LeanInTogetherHOW TO BE AN ALL-STAR DAD
2
New parenting tips

Leadership
Tips for
Parents
Brought to
you by LeanIn.Org
& Girl Scouts
of the USA

1. Encourage Girls
and Boys Equally to Lead
THE SITUATION >
Parents and grandparents are crucial architects of
a girl’s leadership potential. Yet as early as middle
school, parents place a higher value on leadership
for boys than for girls.3
THE SOLUTION >
Reﬂect on the different messages you may be giving
a daughter or son about ambition, future success,
and leadership. Parents can legitimize a girl’s most
ambitious dreams with acknowledgment and
encouragement. Ask your daughter how she
would change the world. Invite her to tell you what
leadership means to her. Does she see herself as a
leader? What are the ways she leads now, and in
what ways would she like to lead more in the future?
DID YOU KNOW?
In a comprehensive study of
adolescents and their families,
parents of seventh graders
placed greater importance on
leadership for boys
thanfor girls.4
The
Bet
hig
drop
2. Be Conscious of the Way
You and She Talk
THE SITUATION >
Girls learn early that too much conﬁdence can
get them ostracized, and you can often hear the
proof in how they communicate. Many girls start
sentences with apologies (“I’m not sure this is right,
but…”) or turn factual sentences into questions
(“Martin Luther King was a civil rights leader?”).
Some cock their heads, play with their hair, or cover
their mouths while speaking, using phrases like “kind
of” and “sort of” to weaken their convictions. These
phrases can become habits and hinder a girl’s ability
to speak in a direct manner later on.
THE SOLUTION >
Notice how you communicate in front of your
daughter or granddaughter and avoid hedging
or softening your opinions with disclaimers or
apologies. Be conscious of how your daughter or
granddaughter speaks as well. Reach out to her
teachers and coaches for feedback on how she
communicates. Girls are vulnerable to perfectionism,
so it can be helpful to acknowledge your own
hedging words along with hers.

DID YOU KNOW?
The wage gap
starts at home: Girls get
paid less than boys for
household chores.7
3. Make Your Home an
Equal Household
THE SITUATION >
The wage gap, along with the belief that women
should oversee household work, starts earlier than
you think. Research shows that boys spend less time
on household chores but make more money than
girls. Parents often place greater value on the chores
boys typically perform, like mowing the lawn, than
on chores that girls usually do, like folding laundry
or dishwashing.6
THE SOLUTION >
Your home is a powerful classroom for your children.
Do your girls do “typical girl” chores like cleaning or
laundry, while boys take out the trash and mow the
lawn? Switch up the assignments. If certain chores
receive more allowance, distribute those chores
equally. If you end up doing chores in an attempt
to avoid another round of nagging, take care to
ensure you’re not doing one child’s work more
than another’s.
6
DID YO
Girls are t
as boys t
leadership r
them see
4. Teach Her to
Respect Her Feelings
THE SITUATION >
Girls learn early on that being liked and avoiding
conﬂict—even when they’re upset—can win social
status and rewards. Many girls are told to “get over”
their feelings or to stop being “so sensitive.” A girl’s
ability to recognize and respect her feelings, and
to speak up about them, is a vital ingredient to
developing healthy personal authority and
conﬁdence.
THE SOLUTION >
Teach your daughter to respect herself by letting her
know it’s okay to feel whatever it is she feels and to
talk about it. She may not like all her feelings, but
they’re an important part of who she is; just as we
have to take care of our bodies, we also have to take
care of our feelings. Show her by example: avoid
denying, second-guessing, or questioning her
feelings with phrases like “It’s not a big deal” or
“Don’t overreact.” When she’s ready to share with
others, be realistic with her about the challenges of
speaking up in a world that still expects girls to be
nice above all. Sometimes we have to speak up just
to show we believe we should be heard, even if the
result isn’t what we hoped for.

ACTIVITY
6. Dads and Granddads:
Know Your Influence
THE SITUATION >
Research has shown that father figures can have a
significant impact on a girl’s ability to trust, enjoy,
and relate well to the boys and men in her life.10
Girls
whose fathers are positively involved in their lives
also tend to have higher self-esteem and be more
willing to try new things.11
THE SOLUTION >
Dads and granddads, be aware of the power of your
words and actions! They matter. Show respect for
the girls and women in your life and in hers to help
her develop high expectations of other men. Speak
out against cultural messages that tell her to value
her physical appearance above all else. Let her know
you value her for who she is inside.
5. Moms and Grandmoms:
Model Assertive Behavior
THE SITUATION >
Girls often learn to please others at the expense
of themselves. They sometimes agree to requests
even though they may not want to. Later, they feel
resentful. Your daughter needs you to show her how
to set boundaries in relationships and that doing so
won’t end them.
THE SOLUTION >
Try turning down a request to volunteer when
you’re overloaded—and explain why to your
daughter. If you do say yes and wish you hadn’t,
avoid dropping hints about how you really feel by
passively communicating or getting quiet or sullen.
Don’t expect others to guess how you feel; speak
up and say it. Let your daughter watch you move
constructively through a conflict with a close
friend, family member, or colleague and emerge
successfully on the other side.

7. Seize the Power of Organized
Sports and Activities
THE SITUATION >
Extracurricular activities offer some of the most
formative leadership training available to girls.
Diverse girls come together to accomplish a
common goal: they have to learn to collaborate,
speak up, compromise, and even screw up, often
under stress. Sports can be particularly positive for
girls. A survey found that more than 80 percent of
senior women executives played sports growing up.12
THE SOLUTION >
Get her on a team! Developing her athletic ability
is only one part of what she’s there to learn.
Embrace the sports ﬁeld as a classroom where your
daughter will learn an invaluable set of social and
psychological skills. If she is not interested in sports,
help her seek out another activity where she can be
part of a team. Whether it’s debate, band, or chess,
there is a group out there for everyone.
DID YOU KNOW?
When they participate in
extracurricular activities,
girls gain leadership skills that
stay with them for life.
Encourage girls to try

ACTIVITY
Become Movie Critics!
8. Get Media Literate—Together
THE SITUATION >
On average, kids consume technology and media for
almost eight hours each day.14
That’s an education in
and of itself. But what are girls learning? Research
shows that males outnumber females by almost
three to one in family ﬁlms. Even more discouraging,
female characters are almost four times as likely to
be shown in sexy attire.15
THE SOLUTION >
Take the time to ask your daughter what she’s
watching and reading and why she likes it. Pick a
movie or television show and ask: What kinds of
messages about girls and women does it send? How
are girls and women portrayed and what do they do
and talk about? How are girls’ and women’s
relationships portrayed? Are the relationships built
on trust and caring? What do you think about what
you’re seeing? Have a discussion, not a lecture.
Weigh in on your concerns, but remember that she’ll
take you more seriously when you can both enjoy
and criticize her favorite media.

nbossy
9. Let Her Solve
Problems on Her Own
THE SITUATION >
Resilience, the ability to overcome obstacles, is a
cornerstone of confidence. When parents step in to
solve problems, girls don’t develop the coping skills
they need to handle difficult situations on their own.
THE SOLUTION >
When your daughter has a problem, pause and ask,
“What do you want to do about it?” If she says, “I
don’t know,” push her gently to consider strategies
she might use to deal with the situation and then
ask her about the possible outcomes. Let her
decide what she wants to do (within reason). Even
if you disagree with her, give her the chance to own
her decision and learn a lesson if it doesn’t work out
the way she wants. Your confidence in her ability to
solve problems on her own will build hers!
OW?
ritty:
ommon
cessful
nce.17
ACTIVITY
Cultivate Her Passion
Finding a passion in life—whether it’s playing the
bassoon, fund-raising for a cause, or perfecting her
foul shot—can fuel a girl’s drive and help her see her
potential. Ask your daughter to rate her five favorite
10. Encourage Her to
Step Outside Her Comfort Zone
THE SITUATION >
We feel braver when we prove to ourselves that
we can leave our comfort zones, overcome barriers,
and master challenging tasks. Many girls struggle
to take risks because they worry about failing or
disappointing others.
THE SOLUTION >
Encourage your daughter to try new things, whether
it’s going to an event where she doesn’t know a lot
of people or asking her to check out with a cashier
at the grocery store. If she always lets her friends
decide what to do on weekends, encourage her to
say what she wants (you can even role-play with her
first). Being brave is rarely about dramatic moments:
it’s a skill acquired, little by little, over time. Let her
know she doesn’t have to be perfect the first time
she does something. She just has to try.
DID YOU KNOW?
Opportunities for leadership
are everywhere. Girls learn
crucial skills through everyday
activities like taking care of a pet,
raising money for a cause,
or babysitting.18

Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to
Raise Your Kids Free of Gender
Stereotypes
• In this practical guide, developmental
psychologist (and mother of two) Christia
Spears Brown uses science-based research
to show how over-dependence on gender
can limit kids, making it harder for them to
develop into unique individuals.
• With a humorous, fresh, and accessible
perspective, Parenting Beyond Pink and
Blue addresses all the issues that
contemporary parents should consider --
from gender-segregated birthday parties and
schools to sports, sexualization, and
emotional intelligence.
• This guide empowers parents to help kids
break out of pink and blue boxes to become
their authentic selves.

• The goal of The Achilles
Effect is to end gender
limitations on boys by
encouraging parents and
caregivers to let boys
explore the world on their
own terms, without feeling
that they are restricted to
certain activities, attitudes,
and behaviours because of
their sex.

What can you do?
• Stop using gender to label children, to sort children, and to
guide purchases for children. No more “What a smart girl!”
comments and boys-only birthday parties.
• Correct children whenever they make a stereotypical
comment, no matter how minor. Stop statements like “Boys
are gross!” and “Girls can’t play basketball!,” because this
type of group-based thinking is limiting.
• Remember that all toys and all media are educational — they
teach children how to interact with the world and help them
practice the skills they will use in adulthood. Toys should
foster the traits you want your child to develop, regardless of
gender.
• Go edit the toy closet and donate or throw away the toys that
don’t reinforce positive traits and skills.
• Challenge brands through campaigns and social media

How do we socialize our kids?

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