UK Teachers Told Not to Refer to Female Pupils as Girls Because it Reminds Them of Gender
“I don’t think it is useful to be constantly reminded of your gender”
So the argument here is that we have to empower girls by not reminding them that they’re female?
The Telegraph UK reports:
Do not refer to female pupils as ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’ because it ‘reminds them of their gender’, headteachers told
Teachers should not refer to pupils as “girls” or “ladies” because it means they are “constantly reminded of their gender”, the Government’s former mental health tsar has said.
Natasha Devon told headteachers of the country’s leading girls’ schools that they should be using gender-neutral language when they address their students, and added that the same applied for boys.
Speaking at the Girls’ School Association’s annual conference in Manchester, she said that she would “never walk into a room in an-all girls’ school and say girls or ladies” because it was “patronising”.
She added: “I don’t think it is useful to be constantly reminded of your gender all the time and all the stereotypes that go with it.”
Ms Devon said that rather than addressing children as “boys” or “girls”, teachers should use gender-neutral terms such as “pupils”, “students” or “people”.
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Comments
Are these students not aware that they are in an all-girls school? Natasha Devon may not be aware of the difference between boys and girls but you can be sure the kids do. Ms Devon’s ideology defies both biology and the common sense of children.
Well, I can kind of understand it – Natasha Devon probably resents being constantly reminded that she’s a moron.
“I don’t think it is useful to be constantly reminded of your gender all the time”
I would think the process of periodic liquid waste elimination to be an unavoidable reminder.
Isn’t making these statements on behalf of students that neither requested nor in any way indicated they wanted this psycho-ceramic* to speak for them in and of itself patronizing? I believe Ms Natasha should investigate these “little details” before she appoints herself spokesperson for anyone else.
*Psycho-ceramic = crack-pot
I am not a gender.
I am a woman.
I love being treated like a woman.
I loved feeling a child grow within me.
I am not a gender,
I am a woman–and I celebrate that.
How can you have a school where only those who can attend are female and yet those same students cannot or should not ever be reminded of their gender? This is such bizarre thinking that it must be classified as either insanity or a comedy routine.