Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Stereotypes across time

20 minutes

Find Out: Where do gender stereotypes exist and persist?

25 minutes

Take Action: Where’s the balance?

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will:

explore how gender stereotypes lead to power imbalances by identifying where gender stereotypes exist and researching solutions that can be implemented to address their impacts.

Students can:

provide examples of gender stereotypes
recognise imbalance within relationships based on gender
outline actions that can be undertaken to address gender imbalance.

Tune In: Stereotypes across time

Previously, we looked at the Australian Women's Football team and how media representations can influence our sense of identity. In this lesson, we will focus specifically on gender stereotypes and how this impacts roles and balance within relationships.

Step 1

Provide a copy of the article ‘Striker Pat has to obey her husband!’ and the student worksheet to the class. You may wish to provide students with a hard copy or alternatively allow them to access a soft copy on their devices.

Step 2

After reading through the stimulus article, either individually or as a class, invite students to complete the Project Zero thinking routine ‘Projecting Across time’ on the student worksheet.

This thinking routine will encourage students to view gender stereotyping on a broader scale than what they have been able to experience in their lifetime.

You may wish to support some of their thinking at each section of the time points by asking questions such as:

Map what you think or already know: What do you know about gender and how stereotypes are perpetuated within society? Can you provide any examples? Do gender stereotypes persist in football today?

Reach back in time: How do you think gender stereotyping has changed over the last 60 years? Review the title of the article – what would you infer about Pat’s relationship with her husband? Would this be an appropriate title for a sports report in today’s newspapers?

Reach forward in time: How do you think ideas, attitudes and beliefs about gender will evolve over the next 60 years? What are your hopes for the future in regard to gender stereotyping? What title would you write for the article today?

Step 3

Invite students to share some of their responses with the class.

Find Out: Where do gender stereotypes exist and persist?

Step 1

To engage the students in the next phase of the lesson, invite the class to complete a ‘see, think, wonder’ class discussion focusing on children's toys. Students may wish to record their responses on the student worksheet or in their notebooks for this task.

Step 2

For the ‘see’ phase, do a Google image search using the words ‘girls toys’ and display this on the board or a large screen for the class to see.

Step 3

Invite the class to take a minute to look at the results and then volunteer answers as to what they see. Encourage the class to look at the images as a whole and look at what common themes they are seeing. You may wish to ask prompting questions such as, “What do you notice about the colours?” or “How would you describe the type of toys that are displayed?”

Step 4

Next, do a Google image search using the words ‘boys toys’, and again, invite the class to take a minute to look at the results and then volunteer answers as to what they see. You may wish to ask the same prompting questions you did for Step 4.

Step 5

To complete the ‘see’ part of the routine, complete a Google image search using the words ‘children’s toys’ and again, invite the class to take a minute to look at the results and then volunteer answers as to what they see. Again, you may wish to ask the same prompting questions that you did for Step 4.

At this point, you may also wish to remind students that some people identify as nonbinary, and therefore, do not identify as a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. Looking at stereotypes for all ‘children’ as well as ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ will leave space for nonbinary people and will ensure that you’re not reinforcing the gender binary.

Step 7

For the ‘think’ phase, invite the students to describe what they think about what they are seeing. You may wish to ask follow-up questions such as, “What assumptions are being made?” or “What do you see that makes you think that?”

Step 6

Lastly, help the students articulate what they are wondering by asking them what questions still remain for them.

Step 7

Based on the wonderings provided by the students in Step 6, lead the class in a discussion about what a gender stereotype is and why they can be harmful. You may want to provide students with a definition at this point:

‘A simple idea that is used to describe what members of a certain gender should do, behave or look like, based on preconceived or generalised views, typically in a binary way, that in reality is often unfair or untrue’.

Harms from gender stereotyping may include:

negatively influencing how people treat others
creating assumptions about a person's worth, ability or right
placing limitations on a person's opportunities
making people feel they have to act or behave in a certain way.

Take Action: Where’s the balance?

Step 1

Provide students with a copy of the article “Channel Seven commentator under fire for comments on Matilda Katrina Gorry being a mother” (accessible online and provided in the worksheet).

Step 2

Invite students to read through the article and write down one sentence that outlines the gender stereotype being perpetuated by the comment discussed in the article. Student responses may include things such as:

‘Women can’t perform at an elite level after becoming a mother’
‘Mothers aren’t competitive people’
‘Being a mother makes you less able to compete in sports activities’
‘Mums are too busy looking after children to be able to play sport well’

Step 3

Ask students to reflect on their one-sentence summary and decide if what they wrote was negative or positive. Once you have given students a few seconds to decide, ask for anyone in the class whose summary was negative to put their hands on their heads. Invite students to look around and see how others summarise the stereotype (hopefully, most students have their hands on their heads).

This can be a good time to point out to students that being a mother is directly related to being female, and therefore the comment is inherently gendered. This can be a problem as it implies that females are less capable than their male counterparts. Remind the class of the sentence in the article that states, ‘... in contrast to a men’s match, viewers are not likely to be told that many players are fathers’.

Step 4

Using the student worksheet, invite students to begin researching how gender stereotypes in relationships can lead to an imbalance of power and potential negative outcomes.

Step 5

Encourage students to select one or two of the relationship combinations from the list on the student worksheet and begin filling out the table for Part 3. For their chosen relationship/s encourage students to think what gender stereotypes may exist and where there could be an imbalance of power.

Player & Coach
Parent & Child
Boss & Employee
Siblings
Romantic partners
Classmates

Step 6

Once students have reviewed the relationship, allow them to use their devices to find services that could support or advocate for the people involved in order to rectify the imbalance.

Reflection

Invite students to answer the following question on the student worksheet or in their notebooks:

We’ve looked at the language used in the media around the women’s football team, both in the past and currently. How does this language use and continued gender stereotypes affect my beliefs and biases?

Recognising Gender Stereotypes and their Impact on Relationships

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Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables

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