Do not refer to female pupils as ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’ because it ‘reminds them of their gender’, headteachers told

Nov 23, 2017 by

by Camilla Turner, Telegraph:

Teachers should not refer to pupils as “girls” or “ladies” because it means they are “constantly reminded of their gender”, the Government’s former mental health tsar has said.

Natasha Devon told headteachers of the country’s leading girls’ schools that they should be using gender-neutral language when they address their students, and added that the same applied for boys.

Speaking at the Girls’ School Association’s annual conference in Manchester, she said that she would “never walk into a room in an-all girls’ school and say girls or ladies” because it was “patronising”.

She added: “I don’t think it is useful to be constantly reminded of your gender all the time and all the stereotypes that go with it.”

Ms Devon said that rather than addressing children as “boys” or “girls”, teachers should use gender-neutral terms such as “pupils”, “students” or “people”.

“I think actually in some ways boys are more constrained by the expectation of their gender,” she said. “And whilst that is being challenged and changed I don’t think it’s helpful to keep saying ‘girls, girls, girls, boys, boys, boys’, because there is so much implication that potentially goes with that.”

Ms Devon said that using the term “girls” can evoke a sense that they have to do everything perfectly which can “create a lot of anxiety” in children and teenagers.

Meanwhile, the term “boys” carries connotations of “being macho, not talking about your feelings, being told to man up”.

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