Caren Gestetner

A PARENT who started a gender-equality charity is calling on the government to make challenging gender stereotypes a staple part of the curriculum.

Caren Gestetner, co-founder of Lifting Limits, said children were growing unaware of an “unconscious bias” and that schools could play a part at an early age.

Her charity co-authored a letter to the Education Secretary with an appeal for a change to teaching after the death of Sarah Everard, the young woman who was murdered on her way home from a night out in south London earlier this year.

“Educating children about gender from an early age is an essential part of the solution,” the letter said.

The charity had joined forces with the Fawcett Society to send it.

Ms Gestetner, who lives in Tufnell Park, told the Tribune: “What we would like to see is a whole school approach. The nature of our unconscious bias means we are not aware we have it.

“Often school staff think they are treating everyone equally but once you look at what is being taught, what is on the walls, you realise everyone has a problem with it.”

He added: “I remember when my daughter was four, she was coming home from nursery and said ‘pink is a girls’ colour’. That was as if it was a fact she learnt that day.”

Ms Everard’s death led to protests around women’s safety and wider injustice in society.

A national debate began about how girls and women are treated on a daily basis, and students at some schools bravely shared details of how they had been harassed by fellow pupils.

But campaigners are concerned that it has not always been followed up with action.

Ms Gestetner said: “Harassment in schools – it is great that it is being talked about but what is really frustrating is this is not new.

“In 2016 there was a report published about sex violence in schools – it is a damning report about how prolific sex harassment is in schools, yet nothing happened.”

She added: “Gender stereotyping is really prolific. If you break it down and start to look at the language around it, girls learn quite young that their bodies are open to comment and boys learn part of what it means to be a real man, to be strong and assertive.

“All these kinds of stereotypes become ingrained in what they learn about how they are expected to behave.”

Lifting Limits is currently holding pilot programmes in primary schools across the borough, helping train staff to understand unconscious bias and help address gender equality in classrooms.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “Schools should be places where all pupils feel safe and are protected from harm.

“Important issues such as personal privacy, consent and challenging stereotypes about gender are part of our guidance to ensure more young people have a better understanding of how to behave towards their peers, including online.”