Mia’s First Day Of School

The boys looked at her hand and said “But girls can’t play with cars.”

Mia was sad and felt tears coming to her eyes.

“ I don’t understand why no one wants to play with such a nice car.”

Slowly, she walked to the back of the room. Sitting with her car she began to build a track for it to race on. Though it wasn’t nearly as fun as it would have been with friends.

He had a Barbie doll clutched in his hands and a nervous smile on his face.

“Of course!” replied Mia. “We can pretend your doll is a race car driver.”

And so the two of them played together. Mia built a race track for the car to race on and the boy dressed his Barbie up like a race car driver.

Looking back at her toy box a red speck caught her attention. As she took out the object her face lit up with joy.

The entire way to school Mia couldn’t sit still, she was buzzing with excitement.

“This car will be perfect!” she exclaimed. “I can’t wait to share it with my new friends.”

Suddenly, all the girls started laughing and Mia couldn’t understand why. She shook her head in confusion and decided to leave them behind.

The girls turned to Mia with a weird expression on their faces and remained a long time in silence until one of them said: “a car? But that’s a boys toy. You can’t play with us if you don’t have a Barbie doll.”

For generations, women and girls have been told and shown what it means to be female and those who challenged those ideas were ostracized and alienated. These ideas have become stereotypes in our society which hurt those who both adhere to the stereotypes as well as those who oppose it. Some of these stereotypes include pink being a girl colour, ‘girly’ toys, and much more. These stereotypes can then impact women later in life, forcing them to conform with the path society has laid out for them. No one is born sexist but those ideas come from somewhere, and often that somewhere is media. Kids will copy and uphold what they perceive to be social norms so if we create media that steers away from stereotypes and let’s everyone express themselves as they want to we would be better off. In a 2015 report women made up 19% of experts featured in news stories and 37% of reporters telling stories globally. This under representation helps reinforce stereotypes surrounding women and their competence. Luckily the BBC has started tackling this issue by rethinking who they put in front of the camera, with the goal of achieving a 50/50 ratio of men and women each month.

When she got there she sprinted through the doors, not expecting to find….

On the very first day of kindergarten at the crack of dawn, Mia was in her playroom. She was sorting through her toys, trying to find the perfect one to bring with her to school.

“This truck is fast but it’s wheels are too dirty..”

“This robot is shiny but has too many scratches.”

“This ball is fun but not bouncy enough.”

Thank you to Ms. Spofforth for allowing us into your classroom to learn from your students and to Parsa, Sienna, and Calyx for the amazing drawings!

The kids divided into two big groups and Mia found herself torn between which one to go into.

She approached the group of girls with her spectacular toy in hand. “Look what I got! Can I join you guys to play?”

As the teacher welcomed the students to the class she said “you all have free time, make some friends and go play.”

Soon the entire class was happily playing together as one.

Mia looked up from where she was playing to see a boy she hadn’t noticed before. 

As Mia and the boy laughed and played the other kids in the class began to notice.

“I wonder what they’re doing over there.” said one of the girls. “It looks like they’re having a lot of fun.” said one of the boys.

One of the girls approached Mia and the boy with the rest of the class behind her. “Could we join you?” she asked. “It looks like your having a lot of fun.”

And together they said “Let’s go take a look.”

“Of course!” said Mia. “The more the merrier! Right now we’re racing Barbies.”

She walked towards the group of boys excited to finally have someone to play with.