Title: What equality between girls and boys, men and women? Can gender equity provide for parity in contested
1What equality between girls and boys, men and
women? Can gender equity provide for parity in
contested old male- or female-dominated
territories THROUGH EDUCATION?
- Start up your own analysis
2The equity approach
- Strives to enhance the idea that boys and girls,
women and men can contribute on an equal footing
to a common task (or a family, a business, the
society at large), while no gender is domineering
over the other. The textbooks seem to powerfully
promote it. - There still will have some gender division of
labour, but neither of the genders will appear
more important than the other. - And everybody will be appraised for their share
of work regardless whether men or women, girls or
boys, like in
3All active, all includedEquity doesnt seem
unrealistic, does it?
- Pictures from Bulgarian first grade textbook
Homeland of the publishing houses Bulvest (2002)
4However
- There still exist trends boys and girls, women
and men to be seen or expected to behave in a
prescribed way, as befits a man or a woman, in
public places or work situations, etc. - Try to remember instances when people around
you - - didnt expect you to achieve something (e.g.
to come first in a maths test or mend your broken
bicycle) only because you are a girl - - or talked you out of doing something (e.g.
to look after the flowers in the classroom) only
because you are a boy
5Professional guidance is important in everyones
life Yet what difference can you single out in
this two-page 1-st grade textbook
representations?
I want to be a doctor and cure people
I learn and dream what to become
??? ? ??????. ????? ?? ??????
I want to be a builder and construct modern
buildings.
I love working on a computer
I want to become a train driver.
I want to become an engineer and design robots
I want to become a famous chef.
I want to become a pilot.
I want to become a captain.
Homeland textbook, Bulgarian publishing house
Bulvest 2000 (2002)
6Analyze the professional guidancepage(note
there is some deliberate mix-up with the jobs
children are expected to correct it?)
- How many boys and girls can you see?
- How do they (the characters) speak about their
dreams and/or wishes? How do their orientation or
determination show in their stance or word choice
? - What importance do you attach to the professions
represented? - What are your conclusions on the impact such a
word-picture layout will have on 7-year olds? - How would you change the picture to make it more
equitable in terms of gender representations?
7It is not only the textbooks
- Start a class project monitoring the MEDIA the
press, commercials, the TV news, special
programmes, movies, etc. - Who do you see more men or women? Whose voice
is more often heard or has more weight in
decision-making? - In what types of activities are men and women
shown involved? In what situations are men or
women shown as more important? - Which is the stronger sex? How does it show?
- Are men OR women represented as better
professionals? Who has more power or is in more
powerful position? Who earns more, boasts more,
etc.? - What is the role of sexist language? Power
control, inferiority complex or?
8You may make your own investigation
- It has been a long process of which most of us
are still unaware - You can go back to history books or movies How
has the idea of separate gender life tracks
developed? What was acceptable /allowed THEN and
is not acceptable NOW in your society, on other
continents? - Religion How has religion been regulating the
gender interactions? Do you find it fair or
adequate to the present day society? - You can interview your parents and grandparents
How they felt about (their) mens and/or womens
duties, place/position at home, at school, at
workplace, in the society at large when they were
young, middle-aged, elderly? How have their ideas
about gender social importance changed, if at
all? - New legislation on gender equity in your country
or the EU Does it help genders to be treated on
equal footing yet still preserve their difference
in their own right? Can the legislation
automatically correct existing injustice in
gender interactions, or publicly redress unfair
treatment on gender/sexuality basis at school or
at the workplace?
9Make yourselves emotionally and civilly involved
- Make individual or group posters presenting your
viewpoints on existing discrimination practices
on gender basis - Video hunt film instances of unfair treatment on
gender basis at school, in the café, etc. (its
easy your have your mobiles?) - Write an essay or an article on biased gender
interactions, ending them with your
recommendations on how to change the described
trends or unfair interactions between boys and
girls, men and women - Start quotes page in your blog or school website
monitoring your friends, teachers, colleagues
opinions on gender equity or gender inequality.
Use them to launch a public debate
10It is you who can make the difference
- Starting as of today
- One is not born, but rather becomes a woman
(Simone de Beauvoir) - It is human beings not just MEN who are born free
and equal - Anatomy is a destiny (Sigmund Freud) but people
have worked it out how to put additional
importance on Nature, constantly reshaping their
social (gender) interactions to suit better their
earthly ends. The rightful question is whose ends
and how?
11SUGGESTED BY Svoboda Gagarova, a teacher of
English, Institution Helpdesk for
Intercultural Learning Materials, Bulgaria,
www.helpdeskbg.org Acknowledgment for the
Homeland textbook artists and authors of the
Publishing House Bulvest 2000 (2002)