What's it like being a boy or girl in 2016? Watch these kids' candid answers

These 9 years old from across four continents were asked their views on gender and how it affects their lives.
What's it like being a boy or girl in 2016? Watch these kids' candid answers
What's it like being a boy or girl in 2016? Watch these kids' candid answers
Written by:

What do 9 year olds across the world think of gender and how it affects their lives?

National Geographic photographer Robin Hammond interviewed 9 year olds hailing from diverse backgrounds in four continents and asked them what it is like to grow up in 2016.  

Why 9-year-old children? Because it is an age, when “they’re smack in the middle of childhood but old enough to have sage views on gender,” says Nat Geo.

The children responded to a range of questions including how does gender affect their lives. 

At nine, an Indian boy already thinks that after growing up, he would be pressurised by his male friends to sexually harass women on the streets. A boy from Kenya thinks that the best thing about being a boy is to possess the sexual organ, with which he can have sex with a woman. And a girl from the same country finds being seduced by a man to be the worst thing about being a girl. She also believes that like others she will be married off for dowry to a man, who would eventually beat her up.

These youngsters from countries spanning from Brazil to Kenya, Canada to China, India and Israel and even the Gaza Strip talk about their big dreams- but while the boys think it to be a smooth road ahead, the girls have their reservations.

What would they like to change about the world? One said she would stop bullying, another would take away the “sadness and hatred in the world” and according to one child “If I had food, I would give it to people so they can eat.”

Related Stories

No stories found.
The News Minute
www.thenewsminute.com