Happy To Be Me
5-10 years
Duration:
15 minutes
Estimated Cost:
£0
Focus
This is a quick activity to raise awareness of gender stereotyping in our thinking.
Preparation
None.
Instructions
1.
Split the group up into smaller groups of three or four. You can use breakout rooms if you are on Zoom.
2.
Explain that you are going to show the girls an item and they must take it in turns to send someone from their group to the side of the room (either girl or boy) they think that thing applies to.
3.
Read out some of the words from the following list and ask if it’s a girl thing or a boy thing
- Burping and Farting
- Rescuing
- Dancing
- Teacher
- Cooking
- Pink
- Doctor
- Nurse
- Cars
- A six pack
- Diet drinks
- Scientist
- Blue
- Cleaning
- Lawyer
- Engineer
- Set of spanners
- Computer programmer
- Red
- Glitter
- Mathematician
4.
Once you have read through the whole list ask the following questions:
- Why do you think there was so much agreement?
- Where do these ideas come from?
- Is it true that these are just girls or boys things?
- Can they think of things which everyone does but sometimes we feel like it is just girls or boys which do them?
Spend a little time talking about whether we “fit totally” into stereotypes and discuss the diversity and uniqueness of each person.
Resources
A room the girls can run across, signs with ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ written in large writing, stuck to opposite sides of the room, print out of the session resources
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