Joyce Fegan: Culture of sexism and discrimination is all around us
Chloe Zhao with her Academy Awards for best picture and best director for 'Nomadland' after the Oscars in April. She is only the second woman in Academy Awards history to win best director. In 2020, men directed 78.9% of US films released in cinemas. Picture: Chris Pizzello/AP
Presumably a boy can fill a washing machine or peel a potato the same way a girl can. And presumably a girl can cut the grass or wash a car the same way a boy can.
And chores aside, they can both probably navigate phones and social media in the same way too. But why then are more girls doing housework and more boys asking girls for nude images of themselves?
This week, two pieces of research were published, one shocking and saddening and one stereotypical and disappointing.
The really shocking and saddening one came from England.
In a detailed survey done by England's school watchdog Ofsted, it was found that some girls can be contacted by up to 11 boys a night asking for nude images.
This is where a girl is asked to send a naked photo of herself over WhatsApp or social media and, as was found in the survey, there are consequences to not complying.
In the survey, girls explained that if they blocked boys on social media, "they just create multiple accounts to harass you".
The report found nine in 10 girls experienced sexist name-calling or were sent explicit photos or videos, as in they received nude images of the boys' intimate body parts without having asked for them.
Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman said the harassment was a significant problem at every school the watchdog visited.
"It wasn't in some, it was in all of them," she told BBC Radio 4's programme.
"This is a cultural issue – it's about attitudes and behaviours becoming normalised, and schools and colleges can't solve that by themselves," Ms Spielman said.
"A collection game" is how the requesting, gathering, and sharing of nude images was described in one school surveyed.
"Many children and young people told inspectors this behaviour was so commonplace that they just saw it as a ‘part of life’. One Year 12 (age 16/17) student said, ‘The problem is that it’s so widespread it’s like playing whack-a-mole'," reads the Ofsted report.
The "commonplace" problem of sexual harassment meant the children did not see the point in reporting it, and many teachers underestimate the scale of the issue.
However, most pupils did say they felt they would be able to tell someone about the experience of sexual harassment or violence, but they would tell a friend first and a parent second.
When it came to moving on from telling a loved one to actually reporting it, the obvious cultural fears stood in the way.
Barriers to not reporting include:
- Worrying that what happened next would be out of their control;
- Worrying that they would be branded by their peers as a "snitch" who got a peer into trouble;
- Worrying that they would be ostracised from friendship groups;
- Or that there would be damage to their reputation, that they would not be believed, and that they might be blamed.
It is interesting to note that the Ofsted survey was instigated by an initiative called Everyone's Invited, a website set up by a young woman, Soma Sara, that invited people to anonymously share their experiences of sexual violence. More than 15,000 accounts have been posted there since it went live in 2020.
It is interesting because so often we are reluctant to give weight or credence to anonymous accusations or unverified accounts of sexual violence as shared online. Why can't they go through the appropriate channels of justice? See the children's reasons above.
When an official state watchdog goes looking at the same issue, with its verified measuring sticks and literature reviews and multiple checks and balances, the story checks out.
It's a reminder that we should believe victims when they speak out, because if we don't, it's the perpetrator who benefits, and the problem continues to exist unchecked in our society.
It would be easy to blame the parents – what's going on at home that would make boys behave like this? That's such a simple approach to a complex, age-old issue.
From the moment children are born, we typically dress them in either blue or pink, we give girls dolls and boys trucks and they're surrounded by billboards selling things like perfume but with women's naked bodies doing the advertising.
Children watch shows and films with male leads, writers, and directors – in 2020, men directed 78.9% of US films released in cinemas; at the Oscars in April, Chloe Zhao became only the second woman in Academy Awards history to win best director, for .
Not that awards count, but who holds the lens and tells our culture's stories matter. Children are watching shows where the female characters play roles like receptionists, dead and silent victims, or the adjunct wife.
If you look at images in children's books, the mothers push the prams and get the breakfast ready while the dad is upstairs getting ready for work – or said another way, heading out the door to access economic power. Our culture of sexism and discrimination is all around us.
The second piece of research that came out this week that separates girls and boys, came from Ireland.
It found that girls do more housework than boys in Ireland.
By age nine, girls are doing more housework than boys. By age 13, boys are doing even less housework.
The research, Gender inequalities in time spent doing housework by children in Ireland, by Caoimhe O'Reilly and Mike Quayle at University of Limerick, found the girls were doing what would be stereotypically known as "women's work": Washing dishes, cooking, cleaning, and caring duties. Boys did more "masculine" jobs like cutting the grass.
A 2015 report from the McKinsey Global Institute showed that family care work in Ireland is shared unequally between women (70%), and men (30%).
An Oxfam report last year found that women in Ireland do 38m hours of unpaid care work every single week. If women received a living wage for this work, it would cost the State €24bn.
The functioning of our economy very much depends on this unpaid work, but it seems our society does not value those who carry it out.
While the two reports are unrelated, they are both depressingly indicative of the level of respect our culture has for girls. And they both show how gender inequality starts in childhood.
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