8 mar 2025
Folkuniversitetet
Pink bows, dolls, toy kitchens... Or:
"But when will I do the laundry?" the child persistently asked.
"You can't do the laundry," his mother replied firmly, "you're a boy."
(Elena Gianini Belotti, Dalla parte delle bambine, Chapter 3).
This is how girls/boys and later women/men were shaped in the early 1970s when Elena Gianini Belotti, an Italian educator and writer, pointed a revealing (more than accusatory) finger at the conditioning through which families, schools, and various educators "molded" gender roles that were stereotypical and functional to the society of that time.
What has changed here and elsewhere? What is expected of girls today? What challenges must they face?
We want to discuss this on March 8, International Women's Day, because we believe that, now as then, being "on the side of girls" means being "on the side of everyone."