It seemed only appropriate to use a Blur track, given their stomping performance – Damon Albarn’s drug use aside (tut tut) – at this weekend’s Oxegen festival.

Today I emerged from my cardboard box of work and sleep to listen to some Today FM for a while; Ray Darcy was discussing, simultaneously (and rather confusingly, I thought) the story about the Swedish parents who have opted to bring their child up asexually and the results of the first phase of the Growing Up in Ireland study.

(As an aside and, on the top of the Swedish couple and their child, whom the media has nicknamed Pop, what an interesting experiment. I’ve often wondered how cultural norms and values influence children – but I suspect there is a very valid reason, oh, something to do with ethics perhaps and the fate of the poor child, that this has never been attempted by scientists.)

In the course of the discussion on Darcy’s show, it was mentioned that the majority of primary school teachers are female (no great surprises there), that the teacher is one of the main role models for a young child (again, srl) – and then the question was raised by the interviewee (whose name I didn’t catch; if you know it, please put it in the comments and I’ll edit accordingly) whether or not it is appropriate for young male children to have, as their role model, a woman. Ahem.

I don’t quite know where he got that, frankly, insane notion – that gender has much to do with how well one can act as a “role model”. If the female teacher’s job was to teach the children to act like boys or like girls then, perhaps she wouldn’t be that well qualified; instead, doesn’t the teacher serve as a role model in a moral function, rather than any kind of gender-based fashion?

I find there is far too much emphasis placed on teaching children to act “like a boy” or “like a girl”; eg, “no, Barbies are for girls / that’s for boys / why can’t you dress like a girl” and so on. Why can’t children just be children, without being labelled as anything else, gender-based or otherwise? I’m not quite sure why his question incensed me so much – perhaps because he didn’t ask whether or not a male teacher would be appropriate for a young girl, it bothers me that so many are so precious about boys in society, and about ensuring that they turn out like “men”.

Could there be an underlying suspicion that the instance of homosexuality among young men is in direct correlation with the increasing gender imbalance in primary teaching? (I’m not suggesting this is true or false, simply throwing it out there.) Therefore, a male teacher might teach young boys the right way to act, thus ensuring they stay out of the way of sin, girlish behaviour and (gasp) homosexuality.

Maybe if children were segregated in schools, and boys taught by men, girls by women, we wouldn’t be having this whole foolish debate about civil partnerships and we could all live “how God meant us to”. Pff.

Incidentally, today I defected from the Roman Catholic Church. It’s official, Mother, I’ve gone to the dark side. Now there’ll be no choice but a registry office (should the occasion force itself upon me), a cremation and a pauper’s grave. Or do us heathens even get them?

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