4 Responses

1. gender exercise

   Hello Charlie,

   I have been doing research on this for a long time and one exercise you might try is to give them a situation and have them reverse roles so they can experience the other gender in that situation. They have to role play the other gender.

   If you want to correspond about any of this I am an exec coach and consulting psychologist and looking at gender behaviors based on the science of the brain.

   Diane Malnekoff, Ph.D., A.C.C

   [email protected]

   San Francisco, California

    

2. Daily Routine Exercise

   There are so many different activities you can utalize.

   1) My favorite is to have trainees write down their daily routine. All participants breakdown the day into a schedule of activities starting from the moment they wake-up until they go to bed. Then, put the participants into groups and delegate which ones should chose a women’s schedule and a man’s. They should write the schedule on a flip chart paper. Afterwards, you place them in view for others to see. You ask for observations. Then you can go into a discussion on "gender roles" or even gender stero-types.

    

   To make it fun…you could ask them to come up with daily routines for Mickey and Mini Mouse. Gender roles and ideas of work for the different genders will come through.

   2) On index cards, you could write a famous male-female pair or couple. You post the cards on the particpants  backs. The objective is to determine who they are by asking "yes" or "no" questions to the other participants. After they know who their character, they need to find their pair gender partner.

   When they meet you can have them talk about the gender difference of the characters.

    

   These are just a few ideas…

3. Gender Excercise

   Thanks both.

   Really good ideas and will look to incorporate in some form.

   Thanks

   Charlie

4. This Might Help – Jane Menday CROA

   Hi charlie

   I’ve used the following for ‘diversity’ issues when working with volunteers and also with young people – it may help

    

   Martian

    

   “Imagine that the year is 2050. You are the earth born daughter of Martian parents. Humans made contact with Martians in 2010 and invited them to Earth in large numbers from 2015 to 2020.

    

   Martians were very useful to the nuclear power industry because they are not affected by radiation so they were able to help in decommissioning old nuclear power stations. All the nuclear power stations were decommissioned some 20 years ago.

   Martians and their children do not have the qualifications or cultural background to fit in easily with human society. Many humans have been calling for the Martians to go back to Mars.

   Martians are 10 feet tall, very thin, and have green skin. Genetically they are close cousins to humans.

   Martians believe in twin gods who brought the universe into being and maintain it by singing constantly in harmony. Martians worship these gods by sitting on their hands every 2 hours for 10 minutes and singing.

    

   Trainers notes

    

   Rock Hugger

   Imagine you are a hugger of rocks. You feel drawn to them and want to find a special stone with which to have a lifelong relationship.

   You have known that you felt this way for a long time although you have never told anyone for fear of being ostracised or laughed at.

   Since you live in a flat, you have taken to trespassing in private gardens under cover of darkness to find your ideal collection of stones in garden rockeries. When you find rocks you are drawn to, you take off your clothes and sit with them.

   You also have an unrelated medical condition which causes you to give off an offensive odor. This effect is minimized if you drink large quantities of pineapple juice. Unfortunately, pineapple juice in these quantities tends to stain your teeth yellow.

   You have read about other rock huggers but never met any of them. You are wary of making contact. This is partly because you wouldn’t know how, also, you have read that they are quite strange people. Apart from activities associated with your rock loving, you have normal attitudes and a very conventional lifestyle.

    

    

   Some Questions To Think About………..

    

    

   1. Think about how being either a Martian or Rock Hugger might affect your attitudes towards yourself and others; what social barriers there might be and what practical barriers there might be.

    

   2. What strategies, helpful and unhelpful, might you adopt in an organisation in which you were in a minority?