Who Is To Blame for What is Hidden?

In the main reading assigned for tomorrow, Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools by Karin Martin, a different approach is taken on analyzing and evaluating how bodily differences are constructed. The study using preschools and the way the teachers and teaching their students attempts to answer how “the seeming naturalness of gender differences, particularly bodily difference, underlies gender inequality” (p. 494).

The main idea that helps to explain this intentional dissimilarity between men and women as they become older is the evidence of schools having hidden curriculums. The text defines this underlying phenomenon as “covert lessons that schools teach…means of social control...include teaching about work differentially by class, political socialization and training in obedience and docility…demands the practice of bodily control in congruence with the goals of the schools as an institution” (p. 495). Perhaps the most interesting conclusion made about this type of curriculum is that “it reworks the students from the outside in on the presumption that to shape the body is to shape the mind” (p. 495-496). What are they doing to our nation’s children? I mean, seriously.

Elaborating on this idea of preschools having hidden curriculums, I think this raises a serious question: if parents are always typically blamed for raising their children in a gender specific way (i.e. girls do ballet and boys play soccer), why aren’t teachers ever blamed for creating these bodily differences as well? Before this reading, I never thought about teachers ever teaching us children in such a way as described here. However, my preschool was not nearly as specific when it came to violence and how it should occur, using such rules and posting them in the playroom (referring to Preschool B, the catholic school). Half of us are just starting to read and understand the English language.

Of course I can understand that naturally the anatomy and biology of men and women are different. However, it is not to say that every person’s body is built exactly to match the gender they are. I can agree with this statement: “generally, women’s bodies are more confined, their movements restricted…some of these differences, particularly differences in motor skills (e.g., jumping, running, throwing) are seen in early childhood” (p. 494). But what about the girls and women whose bodies are not like this? Should they have still had their bodies almost controlled (I use this word loosely) according to their sex from an early age? No. Athletes push their bodies all the time in accordance to how they want to live their life and what activities they want their body to engage in. It just reminds me of the known fact of young women being 5 times more likely to tear their ACL than young men. There have been many debates surrounding this issue, as to why it occurs more. Here is data graph, courtesy of My Doctor Online, showing the huge gap between them. 

With that said, I lastly would like to express another thought came to mind: if modifying bodily differences between sexes are occurring in preschool, what about parents who do not place their kids in preschool for whatever their reason? Are those children still experiencing these same differences, but maybe to a lesser degree? I would like to see a study done with students like this, including discussions with parents. That way, we can have data and observation to compare to that of this study as well.