Yesterday I thought of having a short conversation with my kids about International Women’s Day.
My 6-yo son, Ryka, made a funny frowned face and exclaimed: “But You’re Not a Woman!”
“Oh, no? What am I?”
“Grandma is a woman!”
“Oh! So, am I a little girl?”
We laughed. I corrected his developing dictionary with the broader definition of “womanhood”. Not sure if I could persuade him about it though.
My soon to be 10-yo son, Rodeen, had heard about IWD in school. He asked “Is there any International Day for Boys as well?”
“No sweetie! There was no need for it. Do you know why?”
“Because boys have been luckier?”
“True. Because up until 100 years ago people believed boys are better than girls.”
They made silly noises and cheered up with joy that “Yeah! Boys are better!”
That reminded me of my own childhood. How such silly remarks used to trigger my true fury, how hard I used to try to prove them all wrong.
It is not easy to explain gender discrimination to young children when they cannot even imagine how things used to be. Or, worse, they have no idea how invisible discrimination is still going on, even though we live in an inequality-aware society – in Canada.
I had to make my point short and sweet. So I just asked: “Do you remember Anne of Green Gables? The first day when Anne arrived with lost of hope for her new home, but the adopting family were disappointed to receive a girl instead of a boy?”
“Oh yeah!”
Their faces became serious – a bit sad with empathy. I was so sure they remembered that episode of Anne with an E. Season one, episode one. I remember how Rodeen was touched back then by understanding the discrimination against girls. That episode had done what I had to do in countless boring speeches and examples and explanations: it had showed them how someone would feel when being discriminated against for a nonsense belief.
Most children have a strong sense of justice and fairness. They feel when things are “not fair”. #Anne with an E series (https://g.co/kgs/5fnr6W ) has been very successful to show various kinds of discrimination such as gender, race, and sexual orientation discrimination, delicately explained for younger audience. That made it a lot easier for me to talk about why do we need IWD.
