In one of the most disturbing news stories of the year, the BBC had an article today on research of schoolchildren that has found most students think violence towards women is okay if there is a reason behind it. The examples of times when it’s okay? If the woman has an affair or is late making dinner.

The research was conducted in Glasgow with 94 primary children aged 11 and 12 years. The children were questioned in depth about their attitudes and aspirations towards gender roles and behaviour. The children were asked to consider if it was okay for a man to punch his wife/girlfriend if he found out she had had an affair. Nearly all the children thought this was justifiable. In a second scenario, roughly 80% of the children said a man was justified in slapping his partner because she did not have the dinner ready on time.

Edinburgh Napier University researcher Nancy Lombard says of her findings:

“The children didn’t agree with violence, but gave reasons to try to justify it if the woman had done something ‘wrong’. The old saying of ‘If he pulls your pigtails it means he likes you’, translates into violence in adulthood which girls accept as normal.”

Another disturbing finding of Lombard’s study was that girls expected to modify their behaviour and narrow expectations once they were married and had children.

One of the girls said: “I want to be a dancer or a doctor.”

But she added: “When I grow up I’m going to have two babies and work part-time in the shop down the road.”

Lombard argues that gender role stereotypes are limited girls’ perceptions of life options and their behaviours in order to ‘accommodate’ men and boys. Honestly, while part of me is surprised by these findings, another part of me isn’t. The socialisation of girls to fulfill gender roles of nurturers and carers starts very early, and I think has gotten stronger with the advent of marketing to children. Toys that used to be gender-neutral are now much more gendered, to the point that even Lego blocks are marketed separately towards girls and boys. This has been found to be deeply embedded at all levels of marketing.

What’s the implication? These are stereotypes that reflect male dominance exacerbate social inequalities for women in all areas of their lives, from the workplace to the home. And clearly this is resulting in some sort of perverse regression to fifties-era gender ideal-types and norms of social behaviour. The next generation is clearly growing with expectations that women exist for the sole purpose of serving men.

Dangerous!