Gender stereotyping has adverse effects on teenage girls in the Western Europe. Despite the current level of civilization in many European states, the society still upholds the ancient stereotyped beliefs. The society maintains that boys and girls have unequal capacities in a majority of the fields.
Moreover, many people do not discuss gender equality in the Western Europe. They claim that both genders are equal. However, this is not reflected in the way they treat boys and girls. A research carried out in a number of schools found that teachers dedicate more time to boys than girls. The prevalent gender attitude in the Western Europe has made it hard for teenage girls to exploit their talents. This paper will discuss some of the effects of gender attitude on teenage girls in the Western Europe.
Despite the fact that girls’ education experience differs based on geographical location, socioeconomic status, disability, and ethnicity, gender stereotyping has significant influence on girls’ education. The manner in which teachers and students construe gender in the learning environment has effects on girls’ learning abilities.
Even though schools are discouraged from practicing gender stereotyping, the vice is still prevalent in many schools in the Western Europe. One of the major problems is that gender stereotyping is normally restrained, and often uncontested or unnoticed.
Hence, schools propagate gender stereotyping without the knowledge of the teachers or students. For instance, teachers refrain from asking girls hard questions since they believe that only boys can handle such questions. Consequently, it demotivates the girls leading to their poor performance.
A research in many of the schools in the Western Europe discovered that teachers relate with girls and boys differently. The study found that teachers allocate more time to boys than girls. Besides, boys have the courage to initiate discussions with teachers. In the Western Europe, the society treats girls as mediocre.
The same culture is propagated in schools, which makes the teenage girls lack the courage to relate with their teachers. This contributes to their poor performance in schools, as they are afraid of making clarifications in areas that they do not understand. Besides, teachers praise boys whenever they perform well in class. Failure to praise girls affects their morale leading to poor performance in classes.
Given the prevalent gender attitude in schools, many of the teenage girls suffer from low self-esteem. Even if a girl is brilliant in class, she ends up avoiding subjects that are associated to boys. In the Western Europe, majority of the teenage girls do not learn physics. Many girls regard physics as “boyish” when asked why they avoid taking it.
Besides, some girls still hold to the traditional beliefs, which maintained that boys’ brain has a high number of white cells that make them good at mathematics and sciences. Teachers do not acknowledge that they influence the decisions that teenage girls make when selecting their subjects. Instead, they regard it as an attribute of girls to avoid science subjects. Ironically, no teacher makes the initiative help the girls change the negative attitude towards science subjects.
In Western Europe, different genders are associated with various types of actions. For instance, girls are considered as nurturing, caring, quiet, considerate, and helpful. Moreover, girls are said to put the welfare of others before their own. These perceptions lead to teenage girls fearing to succeed.
Many of the teenage girls are afraid of performing well in class since it might depict them as unfeminine. To look attractive to boys, girls ought to perform moderately. In the Western Europe, boys do not relate with girls that perform well in class. Hence, teenage girls end up sacrificing their learning for the sake of looking attractive to boys.
The prevalent gender attitude in the region discourages teenage girls from making autonomous decisions. Moreover, many girls refrain from participating in matters affecting the public. They fear being criticised for taking sides in matters affecting the society. For this reason, teenage girls yield to all instructions issued by either boys or their seniors without questioning.
Gender stereotype has led to parents taking their teenage girls to all-girls schools in the Western Europe. Presently, majority of the teenage girls do not interact with boys at school. Taking teenage girls to single-sex schools encourages them to study the subjects they consider as “masculine”.
Gender attitude leads to girls developing a perception that they are different from boys in terms of academic ability. Hence, girls shy away from studying the subjects that the society associates to boys. Numerous studies have shown that girls studying in single-sex schools have a higher propensity of taking subjects that are associated to boys relative to girls in mixed schools.
In single-sex schools, girls do not experience gender pressure. Therefore, they make decisions based on their interests. For instance, girls who wish to secure better paying jobs in future, select science subjects without considering that the subjects are associated to boys. Today, gender stereotype remains as one of the hurdles that prevent teenage girls from exploiting their talents freely.