Viral photo of blatant gender stereotyping has entire internet’s eyes rolling
Little girls wear pink and are the future nurses, teachers and secretaries. Little boys have short hair and will grow up to become doctors, firemen and politicians. That’s what this blatantly sexist photo doing the rounds on the internet projects.
Grrr, it’s 2019 people! Gender stereotyping is out of fashion, did you not hear?
Nothing cute about putting our kids in boxes
The picture was shared on Twitter by Medical Shots, which has over 200k followers and posts health-related content.
This is cute, isn't it? ? pic.twitter.com/ab9YfjiExN
— Medical Shots (@TheMedicalShots) March 10, 2019
The caption accompanying the pic simply asks, “This is cute, isn’t it?” with the love heart eyes emoji.
While the image of two little ones wearing scrubs, holding hands and walking a hospital corridor is certainly adorable, there are so many things that are wrong about it that we are surprised someone even thought to share it in the first place.
It’s actually laughable
Aside from the fact that the image is disturbing in how obviously sexist it is – the message being the nursing profession is for girls (who wear pink), whereas doctors are men, it is also offensive on so many other levels.
Firstly, this sort of gender stereotyping is so outdated that it’s actually laughable. Today we teach our kids that they can play with whatever toys they like, that they can grow up to be and do anything they want, regardless of their gender. That their sex doesn’t dictate what they can do with their lives. But this image is like pressing rewind on that type of thinking. It’s almost funny how backward it is.
Secondly, it’s just so offensive to the medical profession as a whole. It is like a slap in the face to every male nurse or female doctor who thought the old, ‘nursing is for girls and doctoring is for boys’ opinion was ancient history. It seems it’s not and that even today they and we as a society still need to address it. Sigh.
Thirdly, it’s just so dumb. I even feel that writing about this picture is an annoying waste of my time. Why on earth would something like this even fall on my desk in 2019? Its. Just. So. Cringe-worthy – and stupid. Stupid of the person who dressed those kids up in gender stereotyping outfits, then took the photo and stupid of the person who shared it with a stupid audience who ‘liked’ it.
Sigh.
Health professional in training
While the comments on the photo have repeatedly echoed everything I’ve just said, pointing out how offensive and sexist it is, one clever user put this simple text edit over the words, ‘nurse’ and ‘doctor’.
And with that one little tweak, the pic has gone from being cringe-worthy and sexist to one that is very, very cute indeed.
But please people, think before you post. Thank you from the entire internet.
— Angel Fernando✨? (@angg_fn) March 10, 2019
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