Gender Disparity in Classes: The lopsided world of stereotypical beliefs 

BY LUCIA CORREA 

Though living in the 21st century, the world still continues to hold onto its stereotypical beliefs. Whether it’s thinking that only girls can be involved in taking care of children or guys being the ones to have to know how to fix cars. 

Take CCHS for instance, it has a variety of clubs and classes such as robotics, early childhood education, and weight training. Though either sex can join, one gender always dominates the other in involvement. One of the most common examples being childcare.

“The majority of my students are female,” early childcare education teacher and director of Littlest Cowboys preschool Deborah Covard said. “I absolutely wish that boys would get more involved.”

When asking some childcare students how they felt, they couldn’t agree more.  

“I think that boys should get more involved and break the gender stereotypes that teaching is for women,” junior Grace Malan said. “Because they do have a lot of fun in this class and the kids really do enjoy having other boys in the class, especially the boys that only see girls come in, they like having boys here.” 

There is also the fact that it provides first hand experience with caring for children.

“It would help give them insight [in life] as well on how to handle kids,” junior with two classes of childcare Francesca Basaran said. 

Though many agree on how beneficial it can be to both students and kids, there remains the common misbelief. 

“I think that sometimes people have this misconception that this is not the place for them, because they’re boys, but it actually very much is the place for them,” Covard said.

Moving on to another common class: weight training. 

“There are many more boys to girls with me only seeing about two to three girls in my weight training class,” junior with 4th period weight training Noah Perez said. 

Though this class may seem to be more for guys, especially football players, it provides a unique experience that is valuable to anyone who decides to join.

“I think it has benefits for both genders,” Perez said. “I believe that working out and getting in shape is good health ethic for either sex.” 

Continuing on, robotics gives students the unique experience of building battle bots for future competition. While this is true, not too many girls are involved.

“In total there are three girls including myself,” 7th period robotic student Basaran said. 

When asking the other side, there is the point that girls may be missing out on something that they’re interested in. 

“I think there should definitely be more [girls],” robotics student Christian Chin said. “Because STEM and robotics are really cool and I think people who are into that would really like the robotics class and club.”

Not only have classes been misunderstood as more of one particular gender thing, but even clubs face the same cliché.

Best Buddies is an after school club that works with exceptional student education (ESE) students providing them an opportunity to make new friends. Although there is the common issue of not as many people showing up, due to it being after school, there are those who argue that more people should get involved. Specifically the boys. 

“I 100% do think that more boys should join Best Buddies,” Best Buddies Vice President Nick Cohen said. “It’s a great cause and we only have meetings once a month, there’s no reason you can’t make time for that.” 

Not only is it a bit more convenient than other clubs due to their monthly meetings, but students get to truly change someone’s life by showing up and obtaining useful skills for the real world.

“You can learn great life lessons such as how to make friends with almost anyone,” Cohen said. “These life lessons are important for anyone, regardless of gender.”

While this may not seem to be too big of a deal, it doesn’t stop at just what the students think they can or can’t do but even extends towards the teachers as well. 

“Teachers tend to discipline boys more severely and provide them with more praise and feedback than girls,” The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) stated. 

“They praise girls’ works mostly for physical appearance, such as neatness, cleanliness, or artistic quality, instead of content.”

This can then even affect students from reaching their full potential thinking by making them believe it’s not possible because others think not. 

“In high schools and colleges, male students are still more likely to enroll in courses like advanced mathematics,” the ASCD stated. “Science, and engineering than female students, which affects the percentage of women entering these professions (Lynch, 2016).” 

Though all these concepts and issues can’t all be addressed and fixed immediately, changes must be made..

“Schools and teachers should encourage their classes and clubs as more gender equal,” Basaran said. “For instance, encourage more boys to do childcare and more girls into robotics.”