Primary Clitori
A couple of weeks ago I was perusing a catalogue of resources for primary education. Now, we’re all familiar with those huge tomes of Gratton’s and Argos and the Yellow Pages – well this was all those in SPADES! Bloody huge with more than 1500 pages I’d guess. Fabulous stuff for maths and science and spelling and soft play and you name it, they had it. Except I wanted to ‘name’ sexual health and they had ONE page – not even both sides of a sheet – just the one page for sexual health resources for primary schools.
So, this vital subject, which for primary school kids includes ‘PUBERTY’ and ‘WHERE BABIES COME FROM’, has the equivalent of a couple of column inches. OK, I thought, but if the resources are fabulous, you don’t need loads and loads do you? Well you need something a bit less confusing than the ‘pregnancy tabard’!! This inspired piece of WI project work shows 3D felt interpretations of the stages of foetal development all velcroed onto a blue canvas tabard worn by the teacher.
‘Fine’ you might think – except that they’re all on there at the same time and the 12 week old foetus is stuck on in the area of the upper lobe of the left lung!! When kids are 7,8,9 years old they tend to see things quite literally and I was horrified that any child might leave their lesson believing that a foetus works its way around the whole body cavity, growing bigger and bigger before being expelled into the world. Although as a method of scaring the pants off them about getting pregnant at any point in the future, maybe it would be quite effective.
And then there were the puberty pictures and male and female reproductive organs. No sign of a vulva there then! Boys, it seems, don’t have foreskins either and girls only have internal organs. You might see a simple cartoon front shot with and without pubes for the girls, if you’re lucky, but no ‘undercarriage’ detail. I have taught college girls of 18 / 19 years of age who had no idea they piddled out of a different hole than the one they stick a tampon up – indeed wouldn’t use tampons because they couldn’t see how they’d be able to pee with one in. And God forbid you should ever say ‘clitoris’ to a child under the age of 15! Girls don’t know what vulvas look like – they don’t know what’s within a ‘normal’ range or what to compare themselves to and it is a huge but unspoken and undiscussed cause of much angst and concern for many women.
Try Googling ‘penis’ images on the net. You’ll get 851,000 images in 0.05 seconds. They will include, on the first 3 pages alone, elephant, slug, baboon, turtle, killer whale, fossilised walrus, pigs and barnacle penises; seaweed, vehicles, sculptures, ice-cube trays, neckties, buildings, statues, pasta, cakes and hats all shaped like penises; the structural anatomy of the penis in very great detail showing the erectile tissues; penis size charts and various enlargement products; famous penises like Sting’s and Rasputin’s (his has been pickled and undergoes regular research), a Japanese festival of the penis and a number of penis themed party games and cartoons.
Now try the same with ‘vulva’… you’ll get 39.700 images (about a 1/20th) in the same time. Try it and see the difference in what you get! Lots and LOTS of standard labelled 2D diagrams that don’t really look like any vulva I’ve ever seen and certainly not like my own and no detail of erectile tissues. There is some sculpture and a few hand-bags and some vulvaesque plants but it’s not in any way as celebratory as our cultural obsession with the penis. And there is lots more reference to disease of that part of the body too. Obviously, if you put in CUNT you get quite a different, and broader, selection of images. Interesting comparison. Give it a go!! And consider how differently we teach boys and girls about their own and each other’s bodies.
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