Gender Discrimination

In support of the lad I read about in the Independent the other day.  Apparently he was doing fairly well at school until his class mates saw his lunchbox.  Since then he has been suffering routine discrimination and humiliation.  The reason for this - his lunchbox is a My Little Pony lunch box and apparently My Little Pony is only for 'sissys'.

What is worse, as far as I am concerned, is when he tried to enlist the help of the teachers to combat the bullying he was told to change his lunch box.  Instead of trying to deal with the root cause of the bullying, the teachers' answer is to take the easy route of forcing a child into a mould he does not wish to be in.

I was under the impression that school was about being enable to find your strengths and abilities as well as being taught to value yourself and others for who they are, not for the stereotype that society has forced them into.

I'm a girl and I was never that interested in My Little Pony.  Neither was my sister.  Indeed my sister was more into Star Wars, normally thought of as a 'boys' interest.  And before anyone says it, my sister has a long term boyfriend to whom she is engaged.

If equality between the genders means that girls are allowed to be interested in things like Star Wars and Beyblade, which where put on the market for boys, then, to be truly equal, boys must be allowed to be interested in things such as My Little Pony.

And as for the accusation that boys that are interested in My Little Pony are 'sissys', I can think of no better reply than the poem I saw on the wall of a nursery group some years ago:

"You say that you don't like your son playing with dolls

You don't want him playing in such as 'sissy' way,

But that doll is teaching him how to hold a baby,

He'll be a father, one of these days!"