bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Ravina Shamdasani

Twenty-first-century women knit, cook and, if they are lucky, teach, while men forge ahead in business and play sport.

This was the verdict reached during a recent study of local secondary school textbooks.

The survey, which revealed 19th-century gender attitudes, has sparked anger from women's groups. But equal opportunity watchdogs, who have taken up the issue of gender bias, have been met with hostility by many who say their campaign is a waste of public money as the depictions reflect everyday life in the territory.

Women's groups and gender experts expressed little surprise at the findings, but warned such early socialisation in gender identities could hamper children's perceptions of their own potential and create bias against others.

In one economics book for Form Five students, a cartoon illustration of the 'brain drain' depicted a lawyer, a doctor, a businessman and an architect - all male - leaving the territory, while a woman with a child in the distance waves goodbye.

A Form Two English textbook showed a family relaxing in the living room, with one woman knitting, another vacuuming, and a man repairing a television set.

Women were largely confined to domestic roles or cast in 'feminine' jobs, such as teaching, nursing or secretarial work.

Association for the Advancement of Feminism spokeswoman Tsang Ka-yin said the stereotypes were just as prevalent in kindergarten and primary school books.

'It is no longer the case that women are housewives or in gender-segregated jobs - these images . . . need to be updated to reflect social changes,' she said.

Dr Fanny Cheung Miu-ching, chairwoman of the Department of Psychology and the Gender Studies Committee at Chinese University, said the pictures reflected the low level of gender sensitivity in Hong Kong. 'Stereotypes are often assumed to be social realities and early socialisation affects the gender role identity of children.'

'For example, identification with gender role stereotypes will limit children's choices of play or interest in areas of studies.'

Dr Cheung said the Gender Research Centre at the university had organised training workshops to raise awareness of gender issues. The Equal Opportunities Commission also had a training module for nursery teachers, which could be expanded to primary and secondary schools, she said.

The commission will soon complete a study of gender bias in teaching materials. But it has recently been criticised for wasting money. Various newspaper articles claimed the books merely reflected the reality that most women do housework and men do not. Hong Kong Federation of Women executive member Janice Choi Kwan Wing-kum said it was a fact that more women cooked and knitted.

'We should look at overall teaching methods and encourage open discussion instead of banning books that depict women doing housework,' she said.

A letter published in the Post earlier this month also accused the watchdog of 'making a mountain out of a molehill'.

But the commission's gender chief, Priscilla Ching Chung, said: 'Changes in traditional thinking are not easy - for some we are moving too fast, for others we are not doing enough.'

She said it was important to show young boys that housework is just as important a contribution as an outside job.

'Textbooks portray pictures of positive role models because they want children to aspire towards positive roles,' she said. 'If you put out role models only for boys in certain areas and girls in others, you set limitations on their perception of what is achievable.'

An Education Department spokesman said textbook publishers and writers were issued guidelines, including points on impartiality suggesting they ensure there was 'not any bias in content, such as over-generalisation and stereotyping'.

'We can vet books submitted voluntarily and compile a list of recommended texts for schools, but it is all voluntary,' he said.

Both Pilot Publishing Company, publishers of the economics textbook, and Aristo Educational Press - producer of the English textbook - declined to comment.

But the phenomenon is apparently not unique to Hong Kong.

An the US state of Illinois, a study of children's picture books from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s found that 85 per cent reflected stereotypical images of women. The only cases where women showed traits such as strength was when they were 'bad' characters such as witches.

ravina@scmp.com



School pupils still presented with images of women in outdated domestic roles, study shows