Gender Difference – target group year 7
This assembly is intended to support the year 7 modules: Who am I?
These activities look at how far gender difference is biologically produced and how far it is a feature of social learning, and the assembly story reinforces this.
Begin the assembly by producing a baby doll dressed in neutral clothing. Ask them to imagine it has just been born. What do they think are the first questions people would ask? One of the first questions people usually ask when someone they know has had a baby is ‘What did she have?’? It sounds like a silly question – she had a baby, of course. But we all know what the question really means – it means ‘Is the baby a boy or a girl?’?
Why do they think this question is so important to us? What difference will it make to the way we react to the baby, to the name it is given, the clothes and toys it is bought, the way it is treated and the way it is expected to behave?
Tell the students that you are going to read them a story, written in 1987about a baby called ‘X’? Ask them to listen carefully and to decide which bits sound out of date and which bits are still relevant.
The Story of Baby X*
Once upon a time a baby named X was born. This baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn’t tell anybody else. They couldn’t even tell Baby X at first.?
You see, it was all part of a very important, secret scientific Xperiment, known officially as Project Baby X. Scientists worked out the details of the Xperiment and wrote the Official Instructions Manual for Baby X’s parents. The Joneses really wanted to raise an X more than any other kind of baby. Mr and Mrs Jones had to promise that they would take equal turns in caring for X.
The day the Joneses brought their baby home lots o friends and relatives came over to see it, but none of them know about the Xperiment. When the Joneses smiled and said, ‘It’s an X’ nobody knew what to say. They couldn’t say ‘Look at her cute dimples’ and they couldn’t say ‘Look how strong his muscles are’. In fact they thought the Joneses were playing some kind of joke on them.
But of course, the Joneses were not joking. ‘It’s an X’ was absolutely all they would say, and that made their friends and relatives very angry. The relatives all felt embarrassed at having an ‘X’ in the family. ‘People will think there’s something wrong with it’ some of them whispered. ‘There is something wrong with it’ others whispered back. ‘Nonsense’, the Joneses told them cheerfully. Baby X’s answer was a long satisfied burp!
Mrs and Mr Jones had to be Xtra careful about how they played with little X. They knew that if they kept bouncing it in the air and saying how strong and active it was they’d be treating it more like a boy than an X. But if all they did was cuddle and kiss it and tell it how sweet it was, they’d be treating it more like a girl. The Official Instruction Manual prescribed ‘plenty of bouncing and plenty of cuddling, both’. X ought to be strong and sweet and active.
Meanwhile, the Joneses were worrying about other problems. Toys, for instance.? And clothes. Everything in shops was piled up in sections marked ‘Boys’ or ‘Girls’. There were ‘Boys’ pyjamas’ and ‘Girls’ underwear’ and ‘Boys’ fire engines’ and ‘Girls’ kitchen sets’. Mr and Mrs Jones consulted the Official Instructions Manual. ‘Buy plenty of everything’ it said. So they bought plenty of sturdy blue pyjamas from the shelves marked: Boys and cheerful flowered underwear from the shelves marked : Girls and they bought all kinds of toys. A boy doll that wet itself and cried ‘papa’ and a girl doll that talked in three languages and said ‘I am the president of General Motors’. They also bought a story book about a brave princess who rescued a handsome prince from his ivory tower and another one about a sister and a brother who grew up to be a famous footballer and a famous ballet dancer, and you had to guess which was which.
When it was time for X to start school the Joneses were worried, because the school had lots of rules about what boys and girls should do, but no rules about Xs. What would happen to poor little X? The Joneses asked the teacher if the class could line up alphabetically instead of boys and girls separately. But the biggest problem for X was the other children. When school was over, X wanted to play with other children. ‘How about football?’ it asked the girls? They giggled. ‘How about basket weaving?’ it asked the boys. They giggled too. That night at home X said that the lessons were OK but other children didn’t want an X for a friend.
Once more, the Joneses read the Official Instructions Manual. It said 'What do you expect? Other children have to obey all the silly boy and girl roles because their parents taught them to. Lucky X, you don’t have to stick to the rules at all. All you do is be yourself. PS We’re not saying it will be easy.'
X liked being itself. But X cried a lot that night, partly because it felt afraid.? The next morning, little X felt better and went back to school with a brave smile.?
There was a relay race in the gym, and a baking contest and X won the relay race and almost won the baking contest. One of the other children noticed something else. ‘Winning or losing doesn’t seem to matter to X. X seems to have fun and girl and boy skills.’ So after school, the girl who won the baking contest gave X a big slice of cake and the boy who nearly won the race asked X to race him home.? From then on some funny things happened. Susie, who sat next to X, refused to wear pink dresses to school anymore. She wanted to wear red and blue striped overalls like X’s. Then Jim, who was crazy about football, started wheeling his sister’s doll’s pram round the football? field.? He’d put his football in the pram lovingly tucked under his football shirt and sing ‘Rockabye Baby’ to it.
Suzie’s parents were horrified by her behaviour and Jim’s were worried sick about him. But the worst came when the twins Joe and Peggy decided to share everything with each other. Peggy used Joe’s microscope, and shared his newspaper round. Joe used Peggy’s needlework and kit and took three of her babysitting jobs.? Their parents weren’t one bit pleased with Peggy’s wonderful chemistry experiments or with Joe’s embroidered pillows. ‘It’s all that little X’s fault’ they agreed. ‘Just because X doesn’t know what it is or what it’s supposed to be, it wants to get everyone else mixed up too.’ They decided to call an emergency meeting of the Parent Teacher Association to discuss the problem. They demanded that the school doctor should examine X and show how cruel it was to keep a child from knowing who it was.
Next day the school doctor saw X. Everyone waited with baited breath to hear to truth about X. Finally the doctor came out of the examination room and declared loudly and clearly:
‘In my opinion, young X here is just about the least mixed up child I have ever examined.’
Later that day, X’s friends went round to play and found X in the garden playing with a tiny baby, wearing tiny blue and red overalls. ‘How do you like our new baby?’ X asked them proudly. ‘ It’s got cute dimples’ said Jim. ‘It’s got strong muscles, too,’ said Susie. ‘What is it?’ asked Peggy and Joe.
X frowned at them. ‘Can’t you tell?’ Then X broke into a bit, mischievous smile.? ‘It’s a Y!’
Either:
1) Ask some of the students to identify parts of the story that seem old now and parts that still seem relevant
*OR*
2) If you prefer a less interactive style of assembly, suggest that as they go about their lessons today they try to imagine that they are ‘X’s and can make decisions according to what they really want, rather than what other people think they should want. What differences would it make to their day?
*This story was taken from ‘Hidden Messages’ published by Blackwell in 1987.? It is based on an article from Ms Magazine. Despite extensive enquiries we have been unable to ascertain who holds the copyright.
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