Practical Life Skills, Gender, and Empowerment
There’s so many reasons to love practical life work - the dignity it affords children when they can look after their basic needs, the motor skills that develop, and the sense of being part of the family or community just for starters. But one of the long-lasting aspects of practical life skills for children is that boys and girls develop the skills to look after themselves and the environment.
Boys who learn practical life skills like cooking, cleaning, washing clothing, tidying, etc will internalise that this is ‘human work’ rather than ‘women’s work’ from an early age. They will understand the need for all members of family or community to do an equal share in domestic labour, and they will have the skills to look after what needs doing. This in and of itself is a form of peace education - practical life skills as an antidote to sexism, the resulting ‘second shift’ for women and the mental load that then ensues.
Girls will learn a wide range of practical life skills, hopefully - including the life skills of using hand tools, doing bicycle repairs, and basic household maintenance. In a classroom environment, they will see boys competently undertaking a range of practical life activities and will absorb the idea that all people take pride in this type of work, and that these skills have no biological component. Girls will learn that boys can do domestic tasks, and boys will learn that they can do domestic tasks. Everyone wins.
As more boys gain practical life skills like preparing food, and girls gain practical skills that involve tools and basic mechanics, the gender-branding of these activities will become less relevant. Have you ever heard or seen someone somewhat frantically label a boy pretending to cook (or really cooking!) as ‘being a chef’? Or seen a girl provided with ‘girls’ tools'? Our society still has a deep-seated bias about who does which type of domestic labours, and what the outcome will be if those norms are transgressed. It might not be something that we believe or talk about in our families or in our circles of friends, but this undercurrent of sexism and homophobia influence the way many children are raised and are part of the ‘cultural noise’ about sex and gender that children absorb.
Two things you can do to promote empowering practical life experiences at home:
1. Expose children to a range of practical life activities, both ones coded as ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’
This may seem obvious, but let children build a range of skills: cleaning, cooking, washing clothes, gardening, simple repairs, furniture assembly…the list is infinite! If your household is, like ours, a 2-parent, opposite sex household, pay attention to who does which type of chores and tasks. Children naturally categorize things and try to extrapolate patterns in the wider world from the information they have in front of them. Their dad vacuuming and doing the washing up may become a story that all fathers do the vacuuming and washing up, for example. If there is a clear division of labour, presenting it as a skills gap which could be remedied helps to prevent your child from forming hard-and-fast ideas about something being a ‘man’s job’ or a ‘woman’s job’. For instance, in our house my husband does the lawn-mowing. I am capable but it takes me a lot more time. He does it because he is faster at it, but if I practiced I could probably get better at it. Sometimes A will ask me if I feel like practicing the lawn mowing- the answer is always no! - but sometime perhaps I will give it a try.
2. Notice the cultural messages your child is absorbing about the gendered nature of domestic labour
From pictures of Mrs. Thomas hoovering in the Mog books, to dads in films bumbling as they take care of babies, to overheard conversations from an older generation about ‘real boys’ not playing with dolls, our children are unconsciously absorbing the negative stereotypes about whose responsibility domestic labour really is. When you observe one of these stereotypes, don’t be afraid to point it out. “Mrs. Thomas uses the vacuum cleaner a lot! What jobs do you think Mr. Thomas does at home? In our house Daddy likes to do the hoovering!” Seek out books that shift the balance but don’t focus too much on the message of ‘difference.’ I love Shirley Hughes’s books for the way they show both mothers and fathers doing a range of domestic tasks.
Have you encountered any situations where your child choosing traditionally-gendered practical life activities has felt challenging to anyone? How have you handled it? I’d love to hear from you.
Shirley Hughes, from “Alfie and Dad”