Start up your own analysis

1. What 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

2. The 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…

3. All active, all included…Equity doesn’t seem unrealistic, does it? • Pictures from Bulgarian first grade textbook ‘Homeland’ of the publishing houses Bulvest (2002)

4. However… • 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: - didn’t 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

5. Professional guidance is important in everyone’s 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… Уча и мечтая. Какъв да стана? 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 captain. I want to become a pilot. Homeland textbook, Bulgarian publishing house Bulvest 2000 (2002)

6. Analyze 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?

7. It 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…?

8. You 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) men’s and/or women’s 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?

9. Make 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. (it’s 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

10. It 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?

11. SUGGESTED 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)