Virginia Méndez on Rethinking Gender

Virginia is the author of “Childhood Unlimited: Parenting beyond the gender bias” and the series of children’s books “Mika & Lolo”. She is a public speaker and co-founder of The Feminist Shop – an ethical brand that educates on the topic of feminism.

Multilingual and with 8 years of experience both in big corporate and small international companies, after her second child, Virginia decided to put her skills into something that could make a real positive change. Virginia’s vision of creating an impactful ethical business won her an award as one of the Top 100 UK #iAlso f:Entrepreneur 2020 – confirming the need for more voices challenging the way we do things in an impactful way.

In this interview we discuss how, even from the time of pregnancy, that there can be gender bias towards the baby, which can be from the toys we choose to the way we play with children, depending on their perceived gender. Virginia explains how it’s not just one thing that perpetuates the gender bias, but a combination of everything – from the media to books to TV shows.

Virginia goes on to say how being aware of this is the first step in combating gender bias. Then making children aware, so they can identify things for themselves, such as there being no girl role models in their TV show.

We also discuss some of the double standards, such as girls being able to wear track suits and jeans, but boys being teased for wearing a dress.

We finish by discussing what it means to Virginia to be a Feminist and how this means believing in the real equality of opportunity of choices as well as a proactive opportunity from the very beginning of life.

Links:

https://virginiamendezm.com

https://thefeministshop.com/pages/raising-feminists

https://mikalolo.com

https://amzn.to/3MFgGsD