Gender Roles
LEVEL: ADVANCED
Why:
Gender roles are full of assumptions and stereotypes. When we become more aware of these, we become freer to discover and determine who we are.
Warm-Up:
What do other people think is true of you based on your gender?
Exploration:
We all carry assumptions about what it means for someone to be a "boy" or a "girl". Where do you think these come from? Could you think of one assumption about gender that is not always true? When we examine these assumptions, we find that many are not true. Even some that may seem like they've been true forever are really just ideas that can change. For example, did you know that 100 years ago, pink was seen as a boys’ color and blue was for girls? The more we're aware of these assumptions, the freer we are to decide who we are and who we want to be.
Additional Resources:
There are many excellent online resources to explore these questions. The website www.amaze.org has many short videos on gender and sexuality topics. There are also two films exploring gender questions: Miss Representation on female gender stereotypes, and The Mask You Live In on male gender stereotypes. Both films contain some mature content and as a whole may be more appropriate for high school, and should be reviewed by teachers beforehand. However, there are clips that can be appropriate and powerful for middle school students as well:
"Miss Representation"
*Watch 0:00 - 1:40*