Because I am a girl: The State of the World's ... - Plan Deutschland

says Alexia Abrego, Plan’s Community
Development Facilitator in El Salvador.
“The fathers see that the boys talk to
the girls with more respect and that both
boys and girls can share toys and spaces
and play together. They see this as a
positive thing.”
Beatriz says she recognises that outside
influences also shape children’s attitudes,
so Plan also works with the government
to look at the school curriculum. They are
already training people and institutions
such as the Government’s ISNA (Instituto
Salvadoreño Para El Desarrollo Integral
de La Niñez y La Adolescencia – Institute
for the Integral Development of Children
and Adolescents) in gender and early
education and working with them on a
national gender policy for early years.
Samuel, after a period of banging
drums with his friend, has now moved
on to feeding a baby doll. Next to him,
Fatima, in a sparkling white doctor’s coat,
is listening to Valeria’s heartbeat through
a stethoscope. She has an expression of
concentration on her face and Valeria
gazes trustingly up at her. Most of the
children come from poor families; Valeria
is much smaller than her peers and it
has taken her some time to adapt to the
nursery, but she has made huge progress
in the past months, says Beeri.
Of course, some little boys still want
to wear hard hats and bang hammers and
be builders or truck drivers, and the girls
still want to dress as princesses, but in this
nursery it is acceptable for the children to
try out whatever roles they feel comfortable
with. In a country with a strong tradition
of ‘machismo’ behaviour and high levels
of violence and sexual abuse, it will be
interesting to see if their grounding at this
early stage of their lives will mean that
Fatima and Samuel and their friends will
be able to forge the beginnings of a more
equal and violence-free society.
As this story from El Salvador illustrates,
the role of nursery education in promoting
gender equality lies not just in what goes on
in the classroom but on the impact it can
have on the whole family. By reaching out
to parents, attitudes can be questioned and
family patterns challenged.
6 “Boys labour for payment, girls
labour for love”
“Housework is to be done by girls. It
doesn’t feel good if boys do housework.”
Kanchan, 10, India 63
“My brother… doesn’t move a finger. My
mother spoils him a lot. When he arrives
from school, he watches television until
around four, and then he goes to the field
to play ball and when he comes back my
mother still has to cook for him. If she
doesn’t cook for him, he doesn’t eat. Then
he takes a shower and goes to bed and
that’s it.”
Lana, 16, Brazil, in a focus
group for Plan research 64
While women have moved into the
workplace in huge numbers, the division of
labour in the home still means that they do
the bulk of the housework and childcare
in most countries, 65 a model which is then
handed on to their daughters and sons. 66
We will be looking at how this affects
relationships between partners and husbands
and wives in Chapter 5. In this section we
will examine the effect on the way that
children perceive their roles in the home and
how this affects both their confidence and
their expectations.
The gendered division of household work
is accepted almost everywhere and is true
in the North and the South. One study
undertaken by Plan in India found that 95
per cent of children – both boys and girls –
said that girls should do the housework. 67
In our recent primary research there was
also agreement, apart from in the UK, that
“a woman’s most important role is to take
care of her home and cook for her family”.
While only 11 per cent of all children in the
UK “totally agreed” with this, the figure rose
to 66 per cent in Rwanda and 74 per cent in
India.
“Male children do not collect firewood,
only female children are involved in the
collection of firewood… Boys do not do daily
[household] works, it is mainly the activities
of females… The male children keep the
cattle. I do not like to send my daughter to
keep cattle. She helps me in the home,” says
one mother from rural Ethiopia. 68 This division is reflected in the experience
of the girls themselves: in the Indian study
above, 95 per cent of girls spent at least one
and a half hours every day on housework,
and 33 per cent spent three hours or more.
Many said that they would be punished if
they did not. The experience of Sabiya, a
nine year-old girl from Delhi, is typical. She
wakes up at six in the morning and fetches
milk from the dairy before going to school.
When she returns home she does school
work, housework, eats dinner and finally
goes to sleep at around 10 pm. 69
Vietnamese children also said that girls do
more housework. Three-quarters of children
said that girls have to do more housework
than boys, while boys have more time to
study. And parents explained that this was
partly because boys are more clumsy and
careless and girls simply do a better job. 70
In one 15-year study of child poverty in
Andhra Pradesh, research found that 14 to
15 year-old girls did more work in the home
than boys, which left them less time for
school and study. 71
A gendered approach to work in the
home teaches children not only that there
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is a difference between ‘men’s work’
and ‘women’s work’, but also that the
appropriate rewards are different for
each. One expert notes that: “Children
have reason to think that boys labour for
payment, while girls labour ‘for love’.” 72
Research has shown that it is not just the
amount of time spent but also the type of
chores that parents assign to their children
that helps create gender stereotypes.
Division of labour in Andhar Pradesh 73
Number of hours per day
Boys
Girls
Household chores
School and study
On the way
home in
Ethiopia.
44 the s tate of the world’s girls 45