Breaking down gender stereotypes

A lot of bullying builds on gender stereotypes. At the elementary level, we notice that boys who stay away from male stereotypes (sports, defying authority, making trouble in class) or who show some  stereotypical female traits (interest for reading, being successful at school, express your emotions) experience more bullying (Gagnon, 1999). On the opposite side, girls showing typically male behaviours are being less bullied by their peers. The following movie, directed by a 13-year-old girl, explores a world where boys and girls stereotypes are reversed and how children who don’t embrace those stereotypes get bullied. It can serve as a great conversation starter with your group.

After watching this video, try to answer the following questions with your students:

1. 1. Have you ever heard the following things: running/playing/hitting like a girl, fagget, this is gay, etc. Why is being a girl or being homosexual considered as an insult?
   2. Are there activities that only boys or girls can do? Give examples.
      1. Try to break down prejudices that children could hold (for example, that girls can’t play hockey) by asking them if they know boys or girls that practise activities that some students say they are only for a gender or another. You can also give them examples.
   3. Have you ever been told, like the girl in the video, that you can’t do or like something because of your gender?

Put emphasis on the fact that stereotypes (what we usually expect from a girl or a boy) shouldn’t limit us in our choice of activities and that we should respect everyone’s choice. Our choices don’t change our gender identity or our sexual orientation (you can also say “or who we love and are attracted to” with younger children). See also all the activities you can do daily to break down gender stereotypes.

Assertiveness

Assertiveness can be taught. Encourage children to name and express the emotions and discomforts that they experience. Children must learn to identify what makes them feel uncomfortable and then, to name things firmly but calmly. If a child still feels uncomfortable, encourage him or her to ask for help to a support person (Naître et grandir, 2016). An experiment conducted at the elementary level also showed that boys can only find more synonyms than girls to one emotion: anger. Girls, on their part, have much more vocabulary to name many emotions (BBC, 2018).

Pay more attention to girls’ assertiveness. If boys tend to use more direct aggression when being bullied, girls tend to yield more to requests or blackmailing. A study also showed that mothers would ask their daughters to yield during a game three times more than they would ask their sons (Naître et grandir, 2018).

It is possible to teach respect, assertiveness and the expression of emotions with role plays where children can explore different roles: domination, submission, assistant, observer, etc. (Naître et grandir, 2018). Use short situations and assign various roles to students. Then, discuss with them how the situation could have turned out differently and link it to the everyday life of the classroom.

Accepting differences

Working against bullying also implies to teach students how to accept differences. Here are a few activities that can contribute to talking about differences with children at the elementary school level:

• A Lesson Plan for Helping Young Children Learn to Accept Differences
• It’s Okay to Be Different
• We’re All Different Alike
• Responding simply to questions from children in the 2nd and 3rd cycles of elementary school (about homosexuality)
• Learning respect for diversity (cycles 2 and 3)

Create a safe classroom environment

Finally, it is of utmost importance to make sure that the school’s rules are respected in a constant, consistent and equitable way and to never tolerate insults or bullying in the classroom or the school. Children need to feel safe to be themselves at school.