What would you want to teach her?

[Feline]

OK the question here is specific to girls, so the usual things I would put at the top of a list to want to specifically teach a child of any gender I will leave out.

1. Have the confidence to stick up for yourself, always.

2. Resist pressure to conform. Be your own person, even if you have to take some flack from your peers / the 'in' crowd as a result.

3. Learn how to use tools and make things/ repair things. It is good not to have to be dependent on someone else to do all your fettling for you in life

If I could add a number 4 then it would be: Just because you're a girl you don't have to cook. Only learn to cook things if you want to.

[TimO]

I saw that one and thought "Gosh, I bet that would be a really cool .sig, if I only knew what a 6502 was".

Tut tut, hand in your geek credentials on the way out.

The 6502 is not a bad CPU to learn things like programming on, since it's got a reasonably clean and orthogonal architecture, and isn't that far removed from some modern RISC designs (not really that surprising, since the people who designed the ARM had originally designed Acorn's PCs like the System 1, the Atom, the Electron and of course the BBC Micro, a of which are based on a 6502).

List of three things... hmm...

• How to ride (and maintain) a bicycle, after all this is a cycling forum, and cycling is a great aid to independence.
  
  
• As others have said, how to think critically and freely.  A wild imagination can be useful for coming up with novel solutions, but that shouldn't stop you from being equally scathing of other peoples nonsense.
  
  
• How to speak another language.  Learning a second language when you're young can aid learning others later in life, as well as being a useful end in it's own right (assuming you can use that language somewhere).

I'm not sure any list I come up with for girls would be different from the list I would come up with for boys.  I don't think that (especially when you're young) there are many differences, and a lot of the differences between the males and females of our species are those which have been imposed upon us all, largely due to societal and cultural exposure, rather than any inbuilt need which we have to behave differently.

[Julian]

I'd love to be able to say I'd teach a girl to fettle or use tools, but I'm crap at that myself so I'd be totally unable to teach that.  Of the skills I had that I could pass on, they would be:

1.  The art of the grink.
2.  To be able to debate skilfully, including with those who think they're superior to you by virtue of age or gender, and knowing the difference between your mind being changed by a persuasive argument and just giving up in despair.
3.  That sex is nice and pleasure is good for you.

[Kim]

• How to speak another language.  Learning a second language when you're young can aid learning others later in life, as well as being a useful end in it's own right (assuming you can use that language somewhere).

Another excellent suggestion that I'm woefully incapable of teaching, being a native English speaker who lacks the language gene.  For reference, my BSL only seems good when compared to my German.  Though I'd argue that sign languages are more useful at lower levels of ability - assuming you have a written language in common - as you can fill in the gaps with fingerspell and cheat at grammar.

I'm not sure any list I come up with for girls would be different from the list I would come up with for boys.  I don't think that (especially when you're young) there are many differences, and a lot of the differences between the males and females of our species are those which have been imposed upon us all, largely due to societal and cultural exposure, rather than any inbuilt need which we have to behave differently.

I think there are gender-specific lessons to be learned about dealing with social and cultural expectations, thobut.  $fettling_skill is universal.  The assertiveness needed to feel okay about using it might not be.

[CrinklyLion]

I'm not sure any list I come up with for girls would be different from the list I would come up with for boys.  I don't think that (especially when you're young) there are many differences, and a lot of the differences between the males and females of our species are those which have been imposed upon us all, largely due to societal and cultural exposure, rather than any inbuilt need which we have to behave differently.

I think there are gender-specific lessons to be learned about dealing with social and cultural expectations, thobut.  $fettling_skill is universal.  The assertiveness needed to feel okay about using it might not be.

One lesson that I have taught my sons and wouldn't have needed to teach a daughter, if I had one, is that there is nothing more unattractive than a naked man in socks.  A valuable lesson for life, I feel.

At the dinner we took the question as what would you want to teach, whether or not you actually could teach it yourself.  And we were discussing what girls should learn because part of the point of the evening was to raise funds to put towards educating girls in a developing country where relatively few girls have access to the same amount of formal education as boys.  But also because we were a bunch of mainly middle-class and middle(or middle and a bit)-aged feminists - daughters of the 50s, 60s and 70s, in the main.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

how,to,cook.
how,to,say,no,and,mean,it.
how,to,swim.

I would like to change no2 to "the ability to be properly assertive, in the true sense of the word."

[rogerzilla]

Some off-the-wall ideas here:

BBC News - Anthony Seldon: Five things I have learned

He sounds rather like Jim Cunningham from "Donnie Darko" 

[Rapples]

3.  That sex is nice and pleasure is good for you.

I think you'll have to join the queue

[slowfen]

How to think properly
To have the courage of her convictions
The joy of learning

[CrinklyLion]

The joy of learning

Oh - I like that one a lot.  I think we had one along the lines of the value of learning in 'the sieve', but learning for the pleasure of learning.... that's a grand thing to know about and appreciate.

[nutkin]

To be true to yourself - if that means wearing a pink frothy ballgown whilst you plaster a wall, go for it.
To have the courage to ask why. In fact to be able to question things generally.
To understand that you determine who you are - so you can change if you want to.

[jane]

To read as widely as you can.
To listen and think about the opinions of others carefully, but, as nutkin says, not be scared to question them.
Expect respect and fairness and demand to know why if you don't get it.

[Jaded]

Practical things so she doesn't have to be dpendant on a 'man' to fix the lights when it is dark.

How to use a headtorch. Head torches are brilliant.

[Arch]

Having spent yesterday shopping with a teenage girl, could I add:

If you're looking for a hoodie, and jeans and a top, it's worth looking in each shop for all three, not just looking for hoodies in each on the first two passes, so that we then have to go into them all over again, twice.   


(Although actually, she's had a rubbish time recently, and had a nice day, and seems to think I'll be alright for her godfather, so I'm happy enough. But I do now know every clothes shop on Gt Yarmouth's cheap shopping street...  We did spend a lot of time trying to convince her that having her own choice and taste was better than looking for the exact same thing her older sister had bought, with slight success.)

[clarion]

I've taught two children (both boys, though that may not be as important as it at first appears) the things they need.  I would apply that to all children.

[Karla]

To change a tyre.  It's a long cold walk home otherwise.

[Mr Larrington]

I'd teach 'em how to plant a bomb, start a fire, play guitar
and if they catch a hunter, shoot him in the nuts
I'd try to be as progressive as I could possibly be
as long as I don't have to try too much