How to teach children about gender equality

Obviously Boys will be boys' and 'Girls will be girls'

Parents can help teach their kids about gender equality by never using gender as an excuse for behavior, experts say.

"Do boys roughhouse? Sure, but so do girls," said Hurley. "I have a son and a daughter and my daughter is way more a roughhouser than my son."

And, just as we associate rough play and being aggressive with boys, we are quick to give girls the "mean girl" label, she said.

"I hear this all the time from girls, 'Well, my mom told me she's a mean girl' or 'She's one of the mean girls' and we have to stop saying that," said Hurley, whose newest book, due out in the winter, "No More Mean Girls: The Secret to Raising Strong, Confident and Compassionate Girls," is all about the need to move away from the mean girl narrative to raise empathetic and compassionate young people.

"One of the biggest things we do is we put kids in a box, girls in one box and boys in another ... and then the two boxes we create are negatively charged," she said. "We're kind of like challenging them to live up to it."

Then, when we get to the college level and we hear about sexual assaults on campus, we ask ourselves, "Why is this happening?" said Hurley. She argues it's because children have been raised with a message that "boys will be boys." "They've been learning that since they were 5," she added.

Sanders said parents and teachers should make sure they are not reinforcing traditional gender roles. Girls can take out the garbage, boys can do dishes, she said. Let both boys and girls know it's OK to express and discuss their feelings and emotions and to cry when they are sad.

Take advantage of teaching moments, such as when a child says a girl can't play with the boys because it's a "boy's game" said Sanders. "Never stereotype children's traits such as boys are loud and noisy, girls are calm and sweet, and call out relatives and teachers who do so. Monitor your own interactions with boys and girls and comfort a boy as you would a girl if they are sad or unhappy," she said.

Another way to really smash gender stereotypes, both Hurley and Sanders say, is to discuss traditional male and female employment roles and show kids the opposite, such as a woman who's a firefighter or a man who's a nurse.

Hurley said parents can talk with their kids about everyday heroes, such as the teacher down the street, male or female, and talk about what he or she is doing to raise and educate children, or the firefighters, police officers, nurses and doctors in their neighborhood. "How can we use those people as role models because then we can start describing boys and girls differently," said Hurley.

"If I were to describe you to my daughter as I'm getting off this phone from the interview, I would say, 'Wow. You wouldn't believe how intelligent and empowering this woman is, what she is doing to help educate people through CNN,' " she said. "That's what you do.

 You have to shift your language, really, and think about it because girls still hear that girls are pretty and girls are polite and girls are kind. And boys still hear that they are strong and they are rambunctious and they like aliens. So we have to be careful of that, but then we also have to break it down."

So at what age can you start trying to teach your children about gender equality? Sanders says the education can begin as soon as they are born. "Once you see gender stereotyping in society, you can't un-see it," she said. 

So from day one, parents should provide daughters and sons with toys and books where girls and boys are heroes and have adventures and select clothing for girls and boys that doesn't sync up with what society dictates.