After the arts and crafts is for girls comment I’ve been trying to gender activities and I’m really struggling!
1) Making a wooden car, powered by an elastic band and decorating it. Is this art or engineering? It’s partly about how things work…and it’s a car surely cars are for boys?
2) 24 Hour scalextric..Le Mans in 32 scale. The boy angle- racing cars; the girl angle- the event was put on by a theatre company to enable a 24 hour commentary as extended improv….it was all done by men….
3) Woodland adventure…we went out to the woods with a group of 7 year olds. They collected sticks and built a den waterproofed with bracken. Then collected sticks, lit a fire with flints and cooked sausages on it. Is this homemaking and cooking or adventuring?
4) Canoeing
5) Cycling
6) Playing Star Wars (dressing up and light sabre fighting)- is this dressing up and acting or is it fighting? It looks like a dance to me- they all know not to hit each other…dancing makes it definitely girls
7) The kissing game…the girls pretend to be racoons then chase the boys and try to kiss them. Sometimes the boys let them…sometimes the boys chase the girls (apparently this is a girls game)
8) And what about books…are books generally for girls or can some be for boys/ What about Robin Hood, King Arthur, The Famous Five….
9) Films? Star Wars (boys) Indiana Jones (that was girls when I was young but is apparently boys now!). Film geeks are usually male but my colleagues only go to the cinema under sufferance…
