My Three Rs: Young girls pressured

Sunday 24 September 2017

Young girls pressured

Gender stereotypes are changing the behaviour of young girls as they feel pressure to "act a certain way". So says a report on the latest Girlguiding Annual Attitudes survey.

So what?! Isn't that what society is all about? Putting pressure on members of that society -- *all* members of that society -- to act in ways which are acceptable to that society.

The real problem is that (as I understand the brief newspaper report), the real problem is that the Girlguiding Association disagrees with the acts themselves.

"Pressure of gender stereotypes" affects the ability of girls to "say what they think".

What if girls do feel free to say what they think? What if they think, Girlguiding is brilliantly supportive, I want my sexuality to match a random letter of the alphabet, I will support my freedom with bombs and bullets rather than ballots. Weeellll... I suspect that Girlguiding is more into freedom to say what you think as long as you are thinking what they are thinking.

Every part of society is putting pressure on someone, to think, to act, to behave in a certain way. The pressure may be overt, open, stated and even enforced. Or it may be by example, with no conscious intent to influence. We all do it. We are all members of society.

Young girls are pressured. Young men are pressured. Adults are pressured. The current postal poll on SSM is bringing pressure -- in opposing directions -- on every adult -- voting -- member of our society. Pressure to agree. Pressure to agree with opposing points of view.

We will reach an agreement. An agreement to change, or to not change, or to accept different actions but not enforce active support. (That last is part of my own preference.) Then society will continue. Or continue to disagree and fracture through internal dissent.

Society uses pressure to enforce a common standard. The standard may be, "Accept this, that other people may act differently to you." Or it may be, "Do this, but in a way which does not interfere with the rights of other people."

Pressure to act -- or to not act -- is not bad. The acting -- or not acting -- is not bad. But we may have agreed that "our" society wants its members to act in a certain way. Girlguiding has recognised that girls are being pressured to behave in a certain way, a way that is different to ways Girlguiding supports. Is this good -- or bad -- for our broader society?

First, let's agree on our standards for society. Then we can apply pressure to support those standards. And -- if necessary within those standards -- we may also need to apply pressure to counter the pressure to act outside the now-accepted standards of society.

The real problem is to agree on standards which our society will accept. Only then will we be entitled to complain about pressure to act "differently".