Harry Potter at dinner

The conversation started at the dinner table one weekday evening: just me and my three kids. My six-year-old daughter had asked her big brother and her big sister, "How is it that all the girls and teachers at the school always choose to dress as Hermione when it is World Book Day?"

Without a second thought, my 16-year-old daughter responded, "It is because she is the cleverest amongst them all, even though she is a girl."

This comment blew me away. I was shocked at the emphasis on "even though she is a girl", and I didn’t know how to respond. It hung there in the air, before being absorbed into the unconscious bias parts of my younger children’s brains to become 'the truth'. It took me days to work through that remark, and the reason for my stunned silence was that my eldest daughter has been brought up with strong feminist values and possesses genuine political and social awareness. This throwaway remark revealed a bias she clearly was not aware of, and one I certainly had not expected from her. How had it been formed, and who was responsible?

Evidently, there is no simple or singular answer, but it raises awareness of how stereotypes are formed and how single stories and perceptions become accepted truths. However much we do as parents to raise our children to be liberal, open-minded, well-rounded, politically astute, inclusive, and free of bias, we are up against a tsunami of societal gender barriers that seep through in the language we use.

Ironically, months earlier, my daughter had been deeply moved by Emma Watson’s (who plays Hermione) speech about gender equality at the UN for the 'HeForShe' campaign. She had spoken passionately about how, as the only girl in her A-Level physics class, she felt alienated, and following Emma Watson’s speech, she wrote to the UN campaign about how gender divisions were rife in schools. I was so proud to have a daughter who stood up and challenged the behaviour of her peers and teachers, which is why that single throwaway phrase at the dinner table had hit so hard: "...even though she is a girl." 

As an executive life coach for women, I hear underlying assumptions and biases in the language we use to describe ourselves and others on a daily basis. As women, we need to develop the skills to notice and challenge our own internal language and assumptions. We must support each other to ensure we do not unconsciously devalue half of the human race in a casual comment over dinner.