Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes – Part A: Protecting Workers
30 minutes – Part B: Who’s Responsible?
40+ minutes – Part C: Safe Workplace Campaign
5 minutes – Reflection

Part A: Protecting Workers

Explain to students that this lesson is going to explore safety at work. More specifically, it will explore sexual harassment and sex discrimination as it relates to female workers. It features clips and explores issues from the documentary film, The Leadership, about a leadership cruise for women in STEMM - science, technology, engineering, maths, medicine.

Acknowledge that while sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace don't just happen to female workers, in this lesson we will be focusing on the stories of female workers to better understand their perspectives, and because the film, The Leadership, explicitly focused on women's stories. Before diving into these stories, it’s important to understand what laws exist to protect people from harassment and sexism at work.

Note: You may or may not like to state explicitly that many of the workplace issues that affect women also affect people with diverse backgrounds or contexts. For example, transgender people may also not have bathrooms assigned to them on worksites and may require additional safety mechanisms, Muslim people may require prayer rooms on worksites just as women may need private facilities to breastfeed, LGBTQIA+ may face discrimination, violence or inappropriate conduct just as women do and young people may require greater levels of legal and/or financial advice and not know how to seek help or make complaints. We recommend you keep this in mind when addressing these complex issues with your cohort and adapt the content to suit the individual needs of your students.

Step 1.

Play this video:

What is the legal definition of sexual harassment? (https://youtu.be/g-o60FuiynA)

Note: You might like to reiterate the information in the video that points to greater numbers of women experiencing sexual harassment at work, but that men also experience sexual harassment at work and that men are not always the perpetrators, although more often are.

Step 2.

Invite students to ask any clarifying questions. You can learn more about the relevant laws here:

https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/employers/sex-discrimination

Upon writing this (2021), the Australian Government is making changes to the Sex Discrimination Act. Keep an eye out for updates.

Extension opportunity: Students might like to look up (legal) definitions of the following terms and discuss the differences between them:

Assault
Sexual assault
Harassment
Sexual harassment
Discrimination
Sex/gender discrimination
Sexism
Feminism.

Step 3.

Play this video:

Sexism In The Workplace Isn’t Dead—We Checked | Fast Company (https://youtu.be/H-U4pw_L7gI)

Invite students to break into small groups and discuss what they noticed in the video. After a few minutes, invite a whole-class discussion on this question:

Why do you think it is important to listen and what could this look like?

Part B: Who’s Responsible?

Step 1.

Encourage students to practise ‘listening’ during the following clip. They might like to take notes while they watch this clip from The Leadership:

Sexism and Harassment - At work (https://vimeo.com/554137180/1b84e9cdfc)

Ask students to share what they heard Lauren talk about in the clip.

Step 2.

Invite students to work independently to consider whether the behaviour Lauren described is included in the sex discrimination or sexual harassment laws and whether her employer should be responsible.

They can refer to this link: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/employers/sex-discrimination

Step 3.

Invite them to discuss as a class:

What could Lauren’s employers have done to...

… minimise the damage that might occur from such an incident?	Possible answer: provide locks on accommodation, provide counselling
… respond to this incident?	Possible answer: consequences for the perpetrator, support for Lauren
… prevent further incidents?	Possible answer: educating the workers, changing the culture, informing them of relevant laws, workplace policies and consequences for misconduct

What could Lauren’s co-workers have done in response to the issue she described?
Possible answers: call out the behaviour as inappropriate, report the behaviour to the employer, offer to protect her or keep watch overnight, campaign for internal locks to be fitted into all accommodation on-site or other safety measures to be put in place, request education programs for staff.

Step 4.

Invite students to write independently or discuss this topic with a partner:

What are some of the flow-on effects of workplace discrimination and harassment for women? How do incidents like this impact a woman’s work-life/career and personal life?

Step 5.

Invite students to consider how men and women might have different thoughts or priorities about being at work or moving about in public.

Invite students to use a search engine to find and compare information using the following search terms:

How to stay safe women
How to stay safe men.

They could discuss:

The amount of relevant information found for each gender
The titles of the information
Which gender (if any) was more often targeted by content
What kind of information or advice they found for each gender.

This article is a good starting point: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-women-have-to-do-to-be-carefuln_7072080

Step 6.

Raise the question:

How can men be an ally to women in the workplace?

Extension opportunity: You could explore ways that men can be allies outside the workplace as well.

Invite students to offer their thoughts on the question.

Note: If the students start questioning why this is a men’s issue, remind them to consider that women would never have secured the vote if they didn’t have male allies working on their side in parliaments across the world. White men, in particular, are in positions of power in our society and they have strong voices. If men can ally with women, they can help them to overcome many of the challenges they face in the workplace and outside it, including discrimination and harassment.

Step 7.

In small groups, invite students to read and discuss one of the following articles:

‘It’s not about you’: how to be a male ally, The Conversation
5 Ways Men Can Be Women's Allies At Work, Forbes

Note: These articles are written by women so students will get a feel for what women need from men as allies. You might like to ask students to compare the advice in the articles and also to consider how it relates to part of this lesson, such as the reflection on ‘listening’ at the end of Part A.

Step 8.

As students watch the following campaign videos, invite them to note down statements or concepts that stand out to them. What do the people in these videos say that advocate for women and women’s safety?

HeForShe (https://youtu.be/7ZptgM-jhZo)

Male Champions for Change (https://youtu.be/UNkELV-eMAk)

Ask students to reflect on the statements and concepts they wrote down. Have them consider/discuss:

How do they fit into the categories shared in the article/s they read.

You might get them to sort them into tables like this:

The Conversation article:

Allies for self-interest	Allies for altruism	Allies for social justice

Forbes article:

Amplify	Mentor & sponsor more women	Call it out	Listen to women	Advocate for fair workplace policies

Part C: Safe Workplace Campaign

Step 1.

Invite students to reflect back on the HeForShe and Male Champions for Change construction videos. Explain that these are both campaign videos for the movements.

Step 2.

Explain to students that they are now going to design a social campaign advocating for safe workplaces for women or other marginalised groups.

Students can work individually, in pairs, in small groups or as a larger group.

The outcomes of the campaign should be:

Improved attitudes towards women in the workplace
Reduction of damaging behaviours directed towards women in the workplace
Improved knowledge of sexual harassment and sex discrimination laws
Increased knowledge and confidence in how to take action to improve the conditions for women in the workplace and reduce sexual harassment and sex discrimination.

The campaign design must include:

The name of the campaign
A hashtag
A logo and colour scheme
A slogan
Objectives of the campaign
Images to use in online resources and printed materials

Some possible presentation options/inclusions could be:

Project proposal
Poster
Video
Marketing strategy document
Social media plan
Speech or presentation
Advertisement
Written statement or article/blog post
Media release

Step 3.

Invite students to share their work through an oral/audiovisual presentation or gallery walk.

Allow opportunities for feedback using these constructive sentence stems:

I really liked…
I noticed how you…
Would you consider…?

Reflection

Invite students to write a paragraph starting with one of these sentence stems:

Sexual harassment and sexism in the workplace is everyone’s responsibility because…
When changing workplace culture, everyone’s voice is important because…
The responsibility for improving working conditions for women lies with ____________ because…
Listening is a powerful first step to change because...

Differentiated Learning

Extension -

In Part B, students might like to research how sexual harassment and sex discrimination is affecting an industry or locality of interest to them (e.g. this Q+A discussion of sexual harassment in the Australian legal system) and find examples of role models who have worked to improve the situation.
In Part C, students could also consider addressing intersectional issues, such as those faced by people of colour, people with disabilities or those with non-heteronormative appearance, gender expression or sexual orientation.

Provisions for Learning Support -

In Part B, swap out the individual tasks for small group work and provide additional support or scaffolding where needed.
In Part C, allow students to focus on only one element of the campaign, in collaboration with other group members.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

The Leadership - Sexism And Harassment At Work

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Summary

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