Gender Roles Lesson Plan

The objective of this lesson is to teach a class about the differences between sex and gender. It is a thought in our society that gender and sex are the same thing. This idea creates a number of biases and beliefs that could possibly cause problems in many circles, as well as a barrier in many subjects. In order to teach your students to understand the difference, this lesson ill help them see the difference and all of the implications it has in many fields. this lesson has the ability to be used in various classes. Health is the optimum class with the sex-ed talk, but this could also be used is art, English, or even social studies to speak of civil right and gender rights movements.

Write the word Sex on the board. Ask multiple students what this word means. It's better to ask the students that you know will give you an inappropriate answer, because you immediately get into the heart of the discussion and you will have comments to be able to use later for their teachable moments.

Draw two lines going opposite ways from the word. Write male at the end of one line and female on the end of the second. Ask your students what each of these mean. Write their responses on a completely different area of the board. Group what the students say is male in one side, and group one the students say as female on the other. Then write under male the word penis. Under the word female, write the word vagina. Explain that this is the only thing that these two words mean. Sex is only the different biological characteristics at birth. Yes, it can mean the act, but then it is a shortening of Sexual intercourse. This is what we are when we are born. We are a brand new lump of clay, ready to be influenced and told what to think.

Point out that the other things the students said refers to Gender. Ask the students what Gender is. Point out that gender is the cultural definitions given to the physical differences. These are the definitions of what our culture says is boy and is girl. Point out that in some cultures, a boy has long hair, a skinny body, and as little muscle definition as possible. Where as a girl is expected to be small, a big tummy, and a very red face. If you can find pictures of various tribes in Africa, this would add a visual for this part. Try to add as many different examples of different gender roles that are different than the students you are teaching.

Next explain that our society has told us that a boy and a girl act a specific way. The operative word is "told". Now ask your students how a baby learns to eat. Ask them to mimic this if you have time, and it will add a lot of fun into the classroom. Now ask them how they learned to smile and talk. Explain that we learned to talk by listening and watching our parents and the people around us. That is the reason why people in different areas learn to speak in accents. This is the same way we learn how we are suppose to act as male and female.

Categorize what they have already said under "boy" and "girl". Add the following if they hadn't said it. Boy is strong, intelligent, competitive, tough rugged, powerful, leader. Girl is dependent, emotional, empathetic, weakness, soft, helpless. Ask them if this is true? Bring back the comments that people said, and ask them if this is true for all people. You get a lot of discussions about this. This is your teachable moment.

Explain that we have the ability to be who we are. We decide who we are.