Day of Knowledge, Day of Ignorance?

In Russia, the 1st of September is a holiday: the Day of Knowledge. It’s usually celebrated in school, as it’s the first day of fall semester. But at school, other than just picking up the ABCs along with social skills, we also internalize stereotypes and misconceptions. Mathematics isn’t for girls, for example. Talk of sex is frowned upon. Tatyana in Pushkin’s eternally-studied classic, Eugene Onegin, is a model of feminine behaviour for being a woman with “no angling for success.”

Of course, some students are lucky enough to have teachers who don’t push these kinds of stereotypes – but we don’t think luck should have anything to do with it. We want reasonable discussions about gender to become the norm. That’s why we would like you to take a look at schools across the country and see for yourselves what’s wrong with the way we see male and female roles in the classroom.