The glass wall

The Oxford secondary school where I’ve spent three mornings this week teaching English to Chinese 14-year-olds chose some of its pupils as ‘buddies’ to show the Chinese students what to do at break times and take them to their own afternoon lessons. It’s worked well – I’m sure some of them are now Facebook friends. At the end of today there were joint activities: football, basketball and painting a banner to celebrate the school link. All the girls, Chinese and local, sat down at the paints. And out zoomed all the boys except for three Chinese lads who hovered uncertainly between the painting table and the playground doors. I should have found them seats and encouraged them but I was distracted for a moment and when I next looked up gender pressure had won and they were gone. Not so far as to join in the sport, which clearly repelled them, but just to sit in the cold on playground benches.

Will we ever manage to stop using gender as a primary label for people? From the moment we ask whether the new arrival is a girl or a boy, we name, label and treat and our children differently. So deeply ingrained, so stultifying and so unnecessary.