What Nursery Rhymes Teach Pakistani Children About Gender
Nursery rhymes are among the first stories children encounter. Long before they learn to read complete sentences, they memorize verses about Jack and Jill climbing a hill, Little Miss Muffet fleeing from a spider, and Georgie Porgie making girls cry.
These rhymes are recited in classrooms, played thro-ugh YouTube videos, printed in colourful textbooks, and repeated by parents eager to improve their children’s English vocabulary and pronunciation.
In Pakistan, fluency in English nursery rhymes is often associated with quality education and modern schoo-ling, making them an almost universal part of early childhood learning.
Yet nursery rhymes do far more than teach rhythm, rhyme and language. They also introduce children to ideas about how people behave, who leads, who follows and what society expects from boys and girls. Developmental psychologists have long argued that children learn social behaviour by observing and repeating patterns they encounter in everyday life.
This does not mean nursery rhymes determine a child’s future beliefs. Children are influenced by parents, teachers, peers, media and personal experiences. However, when the same messages appear across stories, textbooks, television programmes and everyday conversations, they contribute to children’s understanding of gender roles. The earliest lessons children absorb often become the assumptions they rarely question.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, Pakistan ranks near the bottom globally on measures of women’s economic participation, political representation and opportunities. While girls’ enrolment in schools has improved over the past two decades, women continue to face barriers in employment, leadership and access to resources. At home, women still perform a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic and caregiving responsibilities, a pattern documented across South Asia by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Imported Rhymes, Local Meanings
Most English nursery rhymes emerged from historical British society. Some reflected political satire, others described ordinary domestic life, while many simply evolved through oral tradition over generations. Their original audiences lived in a social world very different from contemporary Pakistan. Nevertheless, these verses have become embedded in Pakistani education because English is viewed as a language of opportunity, academic achievement and social mobility.
Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory explains that children imitate behaviours they see rewarded or repeatedly presented as normal. Similarly, psychologist Sandra Bem’s Gender Schema Theory suggests that children gradually develop mental frameworks about what society considers appropriate for each gender. Stories, songs and classroom materials become part of that learning process.
Many young Pakistani children have little idea what a tuffet, a counting house or curds and whey actually are. Yet they quickly understand something much more familiar: who takes action, who waits, who earns money, who performs household work and who becomes frightened. Even without understanding the historical context, children can absorb the social relationships embedded within the stories.
Children learn about gender from multiple sources simul-taneously. Families communicate expectations through everyday routines, teachers reinforce classroom behav-iour, television portrays social roles, advertisements reflect cultural assumptions, and peers reward or discourage par-ticular behaviours. Nursery rhymes become one thread in a much larger cultural fabric.
In Pakistan, these influences often intersect with long-standing social expectations. Boys may be encouraged to become confident, independent and future providers, while girls are frequently praised for being respectful, car-ing and obedient. These patterns are not universal. Urban families increasingly share domestic responsibilities, more girls pursue higher education than ever before, and wo-men continue to excel in fields ranging from medicine and law to politics, sports and entrepreneurship. Yet traditional ideas about masculinity and femininity remain influential in many households.
When Boys Lead and Girls Follow
Perhaps no nursery rhyme is more familiar than Jack and Jill. At first glance, it appears to tell a simple story about two children fetching water. Yet even within its brief lines, the narrative places Jack at the centre. He is named first, climbs the hill, falls, breaks his crown and returns home. Jill exists largely in relation to him; she comes tumbling after.
Viewed in isolation, this sequence may seem insignificant. Few parents would argue that Jack and Jill teaches boys to become leaders or girls to become followers. However, developmental psychology suggests that children do not learn from one story alone. They learn from repeated patterns across dozens of stories, songs and classroom activities. When boys consistently occupy active roles while girls appear secondary, children may gradually begin to associate leadership with masculinity rather than ability.
“Nursery rhymes do not create gender stereotypes on their own, but they can reinforce the messages children already receive from family, school and society.”
The rhyme also resonates with familiar social expectations within Pakistan. In many families, boys are still raised with the understanding that they will eventually become decision-makers, inherit family responsibilities or protect younger sisters. Girls, even in loving households, are sometimes encouraged to adjust, compromise or seek permission before acting independently. Such expectations are changing, particularly among younger generations, but they remain visible across different regions and communities.
The nursery rhyme does not invent these attitudes. Rather, it reflects a narrative structure that many children already encounter elsewhere. The concern is cumulative rather than individual. When textbooks, advertisements, television dramas and traditional stories repeatedly present men as initiators and women as followers, children may unconsciously internalise those roles as ordinary.
This is precisely why educators should not simply ask children to memorise rhymes. They should invite them to think about them. Why is Jack always named first? Could Jill have led the journey? Would the story change if both children shared equal responsibility? Questions like these encourage critical thinking without rejecting cultural traditions.
The Problem with the ‘Perfect Girl’
Another well-known rhyme, What Are Little Boys Made Of?, presents one of the clearest examples of gender stereotyping in children’s literature. Boys are described through rough, adventurous imagery, while girls are famously said to be made of “sugar and spice and everything nice.”
The rhyme appears playful, yet its underlying message reflects ideas that remain familiar in many societies, including Pakistan. Girls are often complimented for being polite, gentle and well-behaved. These qualities are valuable in themselves, but they can become limiting when they are treated as obligations rather than choices. A girl who speaks confidently, challenges an unfair decision or expresses strong opinions may be labelled disrespectful, while similar behaviour in boys is more likely to be interpreted as confidence or leadership.
At the same time, the rhyme also places restrictions on boys. Expectations of toughness and emotional control can discourage them from expressing fear, sadness or vulnerability. Research in developmental psychology increasingly shows that rigid gender stereotypes affect both sexes. Boys may feel pressure to suppress emotions, while girls may hesitate to pursue leadership roles or take risks.
Rather than accepting these descriptions as timeless truths, teachers can use them as conversation starters. Children might ask whether kindness belongs only to girls or whether courage belongs only to boys. Such discussions help young learners recognise that qualities like empathy, leadership, resilience and cooperation are human strengths, not gendered ones.
Fear, Consent and Invisible Boundaries
Traditional nursery rhymes do not simply assign different roles to boys and girls; they also shape ideas about courage, vulnerability and personal relationships. Little Miss Muffet is one such example. The rhyme tells the story of a young girl who runs away after being frightened by a spider. Fear is a natural human emotion, and the rhyme is often dismissed as harmless fun. Yet when viewed alongside other stories in which female characters are frequently portrayed as timid or dependent, it contributes to a broader pattern.
Teachers can transform Little Miss Muffet into an opportunity for discussion. Instead of merely memorising the rhyme, children might be asked how Miss Muffet could have responded differently. Could she have calmly moved away from the spider? Could she have asked for help without panic? Such conversations teach confi-dence and problem-solving rather than reinforcing fear as a defining feminine characteristic.
“The goal is not to teach girls to fear the world, but to equip them with the confidence, resilience and judgment to navigate it.”
This pattern deserves attention in Pakistan, where concerns about women’s safety are real and well documented. Parents often place stricter restrictions on daughters than sons, limiting independent travel, outdoor activities or decision-making in the name of protection. While many of these concerns arise from genuine security risks, excessive protection can uninten-tionally communicate that girls are inhere-ntly vulnerable and require constant super-vision. Children benefit from stories that show girls solving problems, displaying resilience and exercising sound judgment not only escaping danger.
Who Works, Who Leads?
Some nursery rhymes reinforce another familiar social pattern: the division between paid work and unpaid care. In Sing a Song of Sixpence, the king occupies the counting house managing wealth, while the queen remains in the parlour and the maid hangs out the clothes. The contrast is subtle but unmistakable financial authority belongs to the man, while domestic responsibilities belong to women.
Although Pakistan has changed dramatically since these rhymes were written, echoes of this division remain visible. Women today contribute significantly to the country’s economy as doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, farmers, engineers and public servants. Yet they also continue to shoulder the majority of unpaid household work. According to the International Labour Organization and UN Women, women across South Asia spend considerably more time than men on unpaid care and domestic responsibilities, limiting their opportunities for paid employment and leadership.
The issue is not that caregiving lacks value. The problem arises when these responsi-bilities are presented as naturally female while financial authority and decision-making are portrayed as naturally male.
“Children do not learn gender roles from one story alone, they absorb them through the repeated patterns that place boys at the centre and girls on the sidelines.”
When Control Is Treated as Comedy
Perhaps the most troubling example appears in Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater. The rhyme tells of a husband who places his wife inside a pumpkin shell and “kept her very well.” Generations of children have recited these lines without considering their implications, yet the image reflects a relationship based on control rather than mutual respect.
In contemporary Pakistan, conversations about domestic violence, coercive control and women’s autonomy have become increasingly important. Laws have improved in several provinces, awareness campaigns have expanded, and civil society organisations continue to advocate for women’s rights. Nevertheless, controlling behaviour, whether restricting education, employment, finances or movement, remains a reality for many women.
No nursery rhyme can be blamed for these problems. Yet presenting such behaviour as humorous or unremarkable misses an opportunity to encourage healthier values. Teachers might instead ask children whether Peter treated his wife fairly or invite them to imagine a different ending based on cooperation and mutual respect. In doing so, an old rhyme becomes a lesson in equality rather than obedience.
Teaching Rhymes Critically, Not Cancelling Them
Traditional nursery rhymes need not disappear from Pakistani classrooms. They remain valuable for teaching pronunciation, vocabulary, rhythm and memory. The challenge lies not in the rhymes themselves, but in how they are taught. Instead of encouraging rote memorisation, teachers can use familiar verses to spark discussion: Why does Jill follow Jack? Could Miss Muffet respond differently? What if the king and queen shared responsibilities? Such questions promote critical thinking while preserving literary traditions.
Nursery rhymes alone do not create gender stereotypes, but repeated messages across stories, families and media can reinforce existing social norms. In Pakistan’s multi-lingual classrooms, educators have a unique opportunity to pair English rhymes with local stories that portray both boys and girls as courageous, compass-ionate and capable. By teaching children to question rather than simply repeat old narratives, schools can transform nursery rhymes into lessons about equality, empathy and respect. The first stories children memorise should broaden their horizons, not limit their aspirations.
The writer can be reached at sehrish.aslam@s3h.nust.edu.pk
