Guiding
Questions: What are gender roles and how are they made and reinforced? Who
benefits?
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Vocabulary:
Sexism 性別主義；（尤指對女性的）性別歧視，性別偏見
gender
性別
gender roles ____________
gender inequality __________
feminism 女權主義；女權運動
rape culture (rape-強姦；強暴)
domestic violence 女性遭受的家庭暴力
male privilege (privilege- 特權，特別待遇)
Activity 1:
Do you think these stereotypes of men and women are accurate?
Audio discussion
Download transcript of audio discussion |
Activity 2: Fill in the Chart:
Traditional Gender Stereotypes (Review Game)
Feminine
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Masculine
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Nurturing
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Not nurturing
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Tactful
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Blunt
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Kind
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Cruel
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Emotional
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Logical
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Gender
Roles
Gender
is a word commonly used for a person’s_______ (male or female). When
people use the word gender in this way, it is often because sex has
many other meanings, making it easy to ____________. But there is a
difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. The word ‘sex’ describes someone’s
______. It says whether someone is ____________ male or female, while the word ‘gender’
describes someone’s personality or character. It says if someone feels or acts more
like a female (feminine) or more like a male (masculine).
Activity 3: Conversation
Questions
I.
Characteristics
·
What do women tend to be better at than men?
·
What do men tend to be better at than women?
·
What behaviors are seen as appropriate for men but
inappropriate for women?
·
Are men and women equal in ability and intelligence?
·
Why is it sometimes seen as a sign of weakness for
men to cry?
·
What things can men or women do that the other
cannot do and why?
·
Are men and women really equal?
·
What are some more commonly held stereotypes with
regards to women?
·
What are some more commonly held stereotypes with
regards to men?
·
Do you think men and women can be equal in their
physical ability?
·
Are there differences in the ways men and women
communicate?
·
How do the friendships between men differ from the
friendships between women?
II.
Employment
·
What professions are more popular with men?
·
What professions are more popular with women?
·
What are the typical jobs for men and women of your
parents’ generation?
·
Is it possible for women to join the army in your
country?
·
Are there more male or female managers and
executives? Can women make effective managers and bosses?
·
Are there different barriers for men and women at
work?
·
Are men and women treated equally – and paid
equally – at work?
III.
Parenting
·
In your country are the responsibilities of a
mother the same as the responsibilities of a father to their families?
·
Are fathers capable of carrying out the duties of a
mother?
·
Are there different expectations for sons and
daughters?
·
Should boys and girls be brought up differently?
·
Can men make effective caretakers of children?
·
What are the typical responsibilities of a father?
·
What are the typical responsibilities of a mother?
·
What do you think about men who stay home to look
after the children while the woman goes to work?
·
Who do you think is easier to raise, boys or girls?
·
Is it ok for boys to play with girls’ toys and vice
versa?
·
Do parents expect different things from sons than
from daughters?
Role Reversal: Watch this video and answer the questions:
1. What is role reversal?
2. If its ridiculous to see men in these ads why isn't it equally ridiculous for women?
Try Role playing the opposite sex and demonstrate some traditional gender roles
GENDER BIAS IN LANGUAGE : A DOUBLE STANDARD
Reading: Young children must be protected from ingrained gender stereotypes
“A new study published this month by the US-based National
Bureau of Economic Research suggests
that gender bias at primary school
may in fact have long-term implications
for pupils. The study saw several groups of students take two exams, one
marked blind by outside examiners, the other marked by teachers who knew the
students’ names. In math, girls outperformed boys on the anonymously marked
exam, but boys outperformed girls when assessed by teachers who knew their
names, suggesting that they may have overestimated
the boys’ abilities and underestimated
the girls. Tracking
the pupils to the end of high school, the researchers found that boys who were
given encouragement as youngsters not only performed better later on, but
were also more likely to take advanced courses involving math, compared with
girls who had been discouraged. They concluded: “Teachers’ over-assessment of boys in a specific subject has a
positive and significant effect on boys’ overall future achievements in that
subject, while having a significant negative effect on girls.”
Of course, many teachers actively encourage girls into Stem
(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. But gender stereotypes are not only
passed on at school. They also proliferate
in the advertising, television, books, magazines and conversations that
children are exposed to from a
young age. One parent recently recounted to me the moment that their
three-year-old daughter picked up a toy stethoscope, only for another
well-meaning adult to swoop in and comment: “Ah, are you going to be a
nurse?” Not, of course, that it wouldn’t be a fine choice of profession, but
what would the corresponding comment have been had a little boy chanced upon
the same toy?
That young people might be deeply influenced by the gender stereotypes thrust upon them should give us all pause. How often do we heedlessly shower little girls with platitudes about prettiness and
looks, or comment on how “big and strong” their brothers are growing? We hear
comments about the sweetness and politeness of daughters, while sons are
proudly described as boisterous instead.
In the strictly
segregated aisles of many toy stores, blue shelves mark off chemistry
sets, dinosaurs and building tools as the domain of boys, while girls are
left holding the (plastic) baby.
Each individual incident
is easily dismissed as harmless.
And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with an individual child choosing to
identify with any of these roles. But it’s the assumptions made for them that matter. Young children are not
always equipped, as most adults are, with the critical tools to analyze
and probe information – what is
presented as fact is often absorbed
without question. This might seem extreme, until, as I have, you visit a
variety of primary school classrooms and start to realize just how many
under-10s genuinely think that girls simply aren’t allowed to be footballers
or doctors or lawyers. Ask your nearest small friend about these matters –
you may be unpleasantly surprised.
The silver lining
is that change is happening. Several toy stores have abandoned gender segregation, partly thanks to
the efforts of campaigns such as Pinkstinks and Let
Toys Be Toys.
The parent whose tweet first caught my eye later reported an excellent
response and apology from the school. There is hope, too, in the reactions of
children themselves. According to one project entry, a girl who faced her
first experience of street harassment
aged eight, when a passing man told her the muffin she was eating would “go
straight to [her] hips”, patiently drew on her biology knowledge to explain:
“No, it won’t, it has to go to my stomach first.”
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Reading Comprehension Questions:
1. What was the
study’s conclusion in your own words?
2. What was the
defining factor that affected the kids’ math test results?
3. What was the
defining factor that affected the kids’ performance and math progress in
elementary school?
4. Besides school,
where do gender stereotypes come from?
5. How are gender
stereotypes thrust upon children? (2)
6. What is the
silver lining?
Reading: Boys Learn to Interrupt. Girls Learn to Shut Up.
Thanks to all my playdate co-hosting parents who tolerated me
freakishly logging interruptions rather than hanging out with you, and thanks
especially to the parents who let me observe playdates that my kid didn't
participate in. I owe you one.
Here's what I found.
When boys and girls play together, boys interrupt more. A lot
more.
Over 10 hours of playdates I logged 472 interruptions total.
That's an average of one interruption every minute and 16 seconds, which is
more than twice as often as we saw in the corporate tech study. Not
surprising, since a kids' playdate is a lot less structured than a formal
corporate meeting. For two hours of observation time, I had another parent
logging independently, and we were within two interruptions of each other in
what we captured. Still, just as in the adult study, it is possible that I
missed some.
Six hours of playdate time included boys as part of the group,
for a total of 291 of the total 472 interruptions logged across all 10 hours.
Groups containing boys show an overall interruption rate of 48.5
interruptions per hour, and groups without boys show an overall rate of 45.25
interruptions per hour, so pretty similar. Groups of four kids had more
interruptions than groups of two kids regardless of gender.
But check out the interruption rates of boys and girls
respectively during those six hours of coed playdates: Of the 48.5
interruptions per hour across the group, here's how many are contributed by
boys and girls respectively:
The more boys there are in the group, the less often girls in
the group interrupt.
The six hours of coed playdate time ranged in size from two to
four kids. There were four types of coed groups: Group 1 had one boy and two
girls for two hours of total time; Group 2 had one boy and one girl for 1.5
hours of total time; Group 3 had two boys and one girl for one hour of total
time; and Group 4 had three boys and one girl for 1.5 hours of total time.
I'd like to take credit for planning the groups this way, but
the truth is that I took what I was able to get in terms of playdates
available for eavesdropping. The higher the concentration of boys in the
group, the more the girls stop interrupting:
As the proportion of boys in the group increases, boys
interrupt more and girls interrupt less. The data suggests that the reverse
may also be true, but it takes more girls overall to bring the interruption
rate to parity. And we'd need some even more girl-skewed playgroups to
confirm.
When girls play together without boys, they interrupt more. A
lot more.
Remember that the overall interruption rate is similar
regardless of whether or not boys are part of the group. That means that when
boys aren't around, girls pick up the slack in their own interruption rate.
That's just basic math. But to make things even clearer, let's look
specifically at the three girls who participated in both boy/girl and
all-girl playdates.
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