(Non)promotion during school years
Part 2
Let me say in advance: I am writing exclusively from my own perspective. As a rule, I do not link to any articles, research or the like. These are purely assessments and experience reports. Personal shit. Maybe someone can relate to it – maybe not.
I think I learnt that in the 90s – in Germany – it wasn’t exactly the trend to get children interested in IT. Especially not girls. I did get the impression that there were attempts to encourage girls to learn “higher professions”, but this usually meant something like being a vet or a German teacher.
There was also no proper infrastructure in the field of IT – not even in other technical areas. Natural sciences in general were rather “meh”.
We had one year of biology, one year of physics and one year of chemistry. Did we do experiments in physics? No. Did we ever see in biology (even if only pictorially) what people, animals and plants authentically look like from the inside? No. Did we do anything in chemistry other than light a match? Yes, well maybe in chemistry, that was the only area where there was a bit more equipment. We had a teacher who was quite motivated.
Our physics teacher was an unmotivated old white man. He talked to us more about the current content of the daily newspaper and less about how traction and optics work. If you haven’t learnt that on your own, you’re just out of luck.
Mathematics. No. Just no. I never felt so incompetent in any other subject. Well, physics.
My teacher never once gave me the feeling that I wasn’t a hopeless case. I don’t know how I managed to get a four on my report card.
A short digression: why don’t I just write “girls and boys” all the time, but instead write “uterus and penis”? We are talking about children. When it comes to promotion in the case described, we are suddenly talking about “girls and boys”. Children are categorised and promoted on the basis of their biological characteristics, regardless of how they see themselves.
My point is this: Someone has missed something. Now everyone is crying out for skilled labour. If you consistently miss out on half of the population for years (and often still do), you’re going to lose out later on. You have people who feel like shit because they were constantly taught, in the years when they were learning things for later, that they simply can’t do certain things well because they have a uterus. And if they’re not good at the things they should be good at: Languages, art and beautiful things – then they just can’t do anything and are hopeless cases, maybe sport will work for them?
Whereas people with a penis are always good at maths anyway, can do technology and of course they are also good at sport, everything that has to do with muscles. If that’s not the case, then they’re soft, girls or something’s wrong.
All in all, it’s just complete toxic shit, one way or another.
Having been born with a uterus myself, I can better relate to this group of the poorly endowed. However, I would like to point out that there are certainly enough shitty abuses of children of different genders.
What role does praise play? Yes. It plays a role. When my teacher tells me: you can’t really do anything except draw and write nicely. What do I do then? The only praise I’ve received, I want a repetitive transformation. I want to show my role model that she’s not wrong. I endeavour to become better.
What am I not doing? Try something else.
Will I become really good at something? Maybe. Will I find out whether I can do other things that are certainly also useful and good? No.
Surely a type of school where everyone tries out everything would have an advantage here.
If nobody teaches you how logical thinking works because some people can do it that way (because they’re boys) and some can’t (because it’s unnecessary), you’ll have obstacles later on. If you’re told that after you graduate, you’re going to find a husband and have a house to raise your children and dogs in anyway. An education is important, but maybe something that’s useful, so … housekeeper or tax consultant.
A look at my environment:
The perception of IT students that it is quite normal that there are only a few women in their lectures. Professors who offer female students a “pass” if they fulfil sexual favours. Computer scientists who can’t find a middle ground between mensplaining and information dumping.
What I would like to see:
I would like to see promotion regardless of gender. Not every child wants to do something with IT. But to be shown that it is quite normal, if it is, or that it is possible at all, would be a starting point. I hope that children can try out everything, that they get the opportunity to find out what they can do and want to learn. Regardless of their parents’ careers, regardless of their parents’ wishes.
I would like to write in much more depth and detail about role models and gender. But I have an ADHD brain and right now it’s very chaotic and emotional and wouldn’t be able to structure everything very well, BUT it really wants to write all this stuff down.
