Gender Bias to Children from the Perspective of the Colors

Unaware Bias 

I believe that the gender inequality has its background in the education for children. Here, the word “education” includes not only the school education but includes all the influences on children by adults around them. Of course, human beings as the same as other animals, have nothing in their minds when they are newborn. However, they become one of the members who form the society, by getting educated by other matured members such as their parents, teachers, and other adults, or by interacting with the peers such as friends and siblings. This very basic system of the human beings infers that a person’s mindset is formed by the influence by others.
Our mindsets do not automatically grow up, but they are given, nurtured, stimulated, and gradually formed by all the various factors around us. Also, I believe that the social phenomenon is a visible result of each action, mindset, or unconscious habits of the people. Thus, to vanish the gender inequalities, it is necessary to stop inheriting the biased mindsets to children.

 When I think of the education which possibly inherits the gender-biased mindsets, I mainly concern about two types of education. One is explicit education, which means the adults are aware of what and why they are telling it to the children. Second one is implicit, which means the children learn something by themselves by seeing the adults’ habits and hearing their words which were done not on purpose. This is called hidden curriculum if it is done in schools or kindergartens.
For example, when a parent tells the son that the boys should be physically strong and the son gets convinced, the specific mindset about the gender is being passed consciously. On the other hand, unconscious one is found everywhere. When parents buy a toy before the baby is born, they may choose a toy depending on the sex of a baby because there are no other hints to rely on. Giving a toy sword  to a boy, and a fluffy bear to a girl. This is actually telling some conceptions to the children. It is okay if the choices are based on the children’s own preferences, but it is surely a problem when those choices are done due to the stereotypically biased mindsets of the parents which they are unaware.

Memories in Childhood

It was when I was about 16 years old that I became to have courage to doubt what the published books, teachers, or media tell me. Before that, I even had not had an idea that written texts in the books are sometimes wrong. Once I started doubting the present situation whether it is fair or not, I was reminded of many past memories of myself one after another. When I was 4 in the kindergarten, I raised my hand when the teacher asked our class who wants to play a role of male hero in the play, but other classmates said it was weird that a girl plays that role. After the class, the teacher came and told me it was okay for me to play that role if I want to, but I was already convinced that I was not ought to.
When I was in the third grade in elementary school, I had to choose the bag for classes. I actually liked the blue and green one, however, after worrying about being told mean things by other classmates, I chose a pink and red one. Even though there had no rules about the choice of colors, no girls selected blue bags and no boys selected pink ones. I remember that I strongly wished there had been at least yellow or purple or some colors which do not have any images of genders.

Irrational Attacks

The tendency of the children’s color preference itself is not harmful, but my biggest concern is about the identities of the children whose preferences are different or even opposite to the common ones.
Obviously, the identities of children are not yet stiffened and still vulnerable, and that is also why their preferences are easily influenced by the adults around them. Therefore, the identities of children, especially when it has something to do with their sexes and genders, should be assured by not being exposed to any irrational and meaningless attacks resulting from the biased mindsets.
As I stated in the first section, there are two types of influences, conscious ones and unconscious ones. I think the first aid to vanish the gender inequalities so far is to try to be aware of where, when, and how we have gender biased minds, and try not to inherit those to the new people to this society whose identities and mindsets are still not completely decided.