Download Seminar: Saturday 20 October 2012 10:30 – 14:30 Athens, Greece

Seminar: Saturday 20 October 2012
Athens, Greece
10:30 – 14:30
FEMALE AND MALE VALUES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS: FACT OR MYTH?CHALLENGING
GENDER ROLE STEREOTYPES AT SCHOOL
"I introduce the word stereotype with some caution because it is subject to misunderstanding on two
counts, both related to believing a stereotype to be true: First, a stereotype is not believed by everyone, but
since it is recognized by everyone, it is powerful – even for disbelievers… Second, when a stereotype is
believed to be true, counter-evidence makes little impact… So, a stereotype is still believed to be true, no
matter what is believed about individual women and men and whatever individuals believe about women
and men in general." (Morwenna Griffiths, 1995)
1. KEY WORDS
• YIN – YANG
ΥΙΝ: dark, black, passive, weak, soft, moon, North
YANG: light, white, warm, active, hard, sun, South
• RIGHT – LEFT BRAIN HEMISPHERES
RIGHT
LEFT
emotion, intuition, empathy, visual perception
communication,artistic expression
order, discrimination
super-conscious
language, reason – logical/analytical
serial perception of time,
conscious
• INTERNAL / PRIVATE – EXTERNAL / PUBLIC PLACE
2. REFERENCES TO FIELDS OF STUDY
• BIOLOGY
"Studies of infants have shown greater activity and aggression among boys and evidence about this greater
capacity of energy suggests that they may be born that way." (Matteson, 1975)
• ANTHROPOLOGY
Even when so-called "third sexes" exist, as for example, the Plains Indians Berdache and the Omani
Xannyith, conventional male and female types are still strongly differentiated. So the question of
continuities in gender imaging must go beyond genetic endowment to encompass cultural norms and moral
scripts." (Gilmore, 1990)
• SOCIOLOGY
The split between rationality and emotion that exists in western culture tends to propel men into the role of
thinker and doer, rather than experiencer of feelings. This tends to make them bad at relating to people and
leaves them rather isolated and cerebral. (Ηorrocks,1994)
• PSYCHOLOGY – ARCHETYPES
"For purely psychological reasons I have in other of my writings tried to equate the masculine consciousness
with the concept of Logos and the feminine with Eros. By Logos I meant discrimination, judgement, insight
and by Eros I meant the capacity to relate." (Jung, 1989)
• RELIGION
Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism – all attribute various qualities and values to men and
women.
• ART
A participant, who is a professional painter and primary school art teacher, gave us a beautiful account of
the representation of The woman in Art throughout different historical periods, showing us paintings by
male and female artists.
3. REASONS FOR THE CONTINUATION OF STEREOTYPES
• Role models – social learning
• Imitation – reinforcement
• Media – advertising
"Typically, men are portrayed as active, adventurous, powerful, sexually aggressive and largely uninvolved
in human relationships. Just as consistent with cultural views of gender are depictions of women as sex
objects who are usually young, thin, beautiful, passive, dependent and often incompetent or dumb…." (Julia
Wood,1994)
• Lifestyle
• Relationships – Reproduction of roles in the family
"For many children, Dad becomes a sepulchral figure who returns from work late in the evening, just before
they go to bed. But for boys, this separation from father is critical for the development of their male
identity… The father is needed to rescue the boy from the female world, so that he can identify himself as
male. In many cultures this transition is marked as a solemn, highly charged ritual." (Horrocks, 1994)
4. SCHOOL AND STEREOTYPES
"The organization of the curriculum, the timetable, the school culture and hidden curriculum, classroom
interactions between pupils and between teacher and pupils were all shown to have been built upon
assumptions of gender categorization and hierarchies." (Arnot,1997)
LANGUAGE IN BOOKS
As teachers we need to be vigilant about discriminating language and images in school books.
PERFORMANCE
Girls have been found to do better in Maths and Science in girls’ schools, thus indicating that they adopt a
more "female" persona when in mixed-gender schools.
LOCUS OF CONTROL
Certain studies indicate that girls tend to have an external locus of control keeping in tune with the
traditional role of women which is subsidiary, defined by the expectations and evaluation of others.
RELATIONSHIPS – PEER CULTURE
"Rewarding individuals for behaving in non-stereotypical ways may be an ineffective approach. Since boys
reward each other for complying with gender stereotypical behavior and punish each other for behaving in
ways that do not conform to these stereotypes, it may be necessary to change boys' peer culture values
before it is possible to modify them."
(Grossman & Grossman,1993)
5. STATISTICS
• Distribution of certain characteristics
• Polarized distribution among males
• More balanced distribution among females
"Finally, Abrams et al (1985) found that females, the majority of whose siblings were male, were particularly
likely to have abandoned science subjects at school (a polarization effect)." Baker(1989)
Leventhal (1970 ) found that "Men who only had sisters were more masculine than men who only had
brothers."
6. STRATEGIES/TOOLS OF SENSITIZATION AGAINST PREJUDICE AND STEREOTYPES
Discussion – presentation of scientific data – personal accounts – activities of self and other gender
exploration through challenging stereotypical views.
7. FURTHER ACTIVITIES
• TEACHER SELF-CHECK: 3 QUESTIONS
As a student, were you treated differently due to your gender?
As a teacher, record the way you treat girls and boys in class, the time that you allocate to each gender,
the consequences, "punishments", that you set for boys and girls.
Check your own stereotypical views by answering the questionnaire.
• REFERENCES TO LITERATURE
• DRAMA/COMMUNICATION: GENDER PRESENTATION IN PLAYS
Miss Julia (A. Strindberg)
Locandiera (C. Goldoni)
Romeo and Juliet (W. Shakespeare)
The Taming of the Shrew (W. Shakespeare)
8. QUESTIONNAIRE
In order to explore our own stereotypical views as teachers, we answer the following questions.
Which of the following characteristics do you consider mainly
genders?
female, mainly male, or common to both
F
1. Willingness to take risks
2. Affectionate behavior
3. Ambition
4. Self-confidence
5. Sensitivity to the needs of others
6. Capacity for action
7. Warmth in contact with others
8. Kindness
M
C
9. Independence
10. Strong will
11. Practicality
12. Aggressiveness/Anger
13. Self-centeredness
14 . Sentimentality
15. Competitiveness
16. Reliability
17. Patience
18. Ability to dominate
19. Understanding
20. Sociability
21. Inventiveness
22. Objectivity
23. Subjectivity
24. Stubbornness
25. Perseverance / sticking to goals
This questionnaire could be given to students and function as a springboard for exploration and discussion.
9. CONCLUSION
Some points based on the above:
A) Certain biological differences between the sexes exist at birth.
B) These differences cannot determine specific sex-roles, unless they are found to serve these roles and
thus are reinforced by society.
C) Social treatment of these differences could
acceptable and desirable.
change
behavioral
patterns towards what is thought
D) Teachers function as models for students. So, they can actually confirm or challenge/ disturb students'
ideas of the way society is organized. Therefore ,teachers could become agents of change if they chose to.
"In human beings pure masculinity or femininity is not to be found in either a physiological or biological
sense. Every individual, on the contrary, displays a mixture of the character traits belonging to his/her
own and to the opposite sex and he shows a combination of activity and passivity whether or not these last
character traits tally with his/her biological ones." (Sigmund Freud, 1905 in Three essays on Sexuality
(Gilmore,1990) )
"Love represents one kind of energy: drawing together, conversing, holding, nurturing, trusting, protecting.
Strife represents the other: pulling apart, separating, discriminating, penetrating, dispersing, attacking,
judging, achieving.
Although, at first glance, it may appear that the archetype of love comes closer to the traditional image of
the feminine, and that of strife comes closer to the traditional image of masculine, in closer observation it
becomes clear that these opposites exist within every person.
Moreover,they are needed by all of us, for were we to be only an expression of love, we would be utterly
vulnerable, and were we to be only an expression of strife, we would be at odds with everyone including
ourselves. The archetype of androgyny is the expression of the two-in-the-one, the paradox that an inner
union requires an ongoing dynamic relationship of the opposites within. Wholeness can only be achieved if
nothing is left out. The androgyne accepts the inner opposites – not necessarily as points of internal conflict,
but rather as parts that need each other to function, in order to maintain the whole." (June Singer, 1989)