Educational Resources
Introduction
- UK National Crime Survey figures show that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in the course of their lifetime.
- 120 women are killed each year in the UK by a current or former partner.
A US survey found that 39% of male teenagers agreed with the statement
"It's all right if a male holds a female down and forces her to engage in sexual intercourse if he has spent a lot of money on her"
The White Ribbon Campaign is run by men to start to change men's attitudes.
White Ribbon educational activities are designed to make an impact upon these attitudes and statistics by involving people in discussion of appropriate ways of behaving.
They are intended to lead participants to question gender based stereotyping, discuss harassment, and generate thinking about healthy relationships.
If, after taking part in some of these educational activities you are interested in becoming more involved in the campaign, please contact the office.
General Discussion Questions
- What makes men's violence against women different from men's violence towards other men?
- What makes men's violence against women different from women's violence against men?
- Are all men predisposed to violent behaviour ?
- Why are some men violent towards women who they claim to love?
- How do men have more power than women in a relationship?
- How do some people have more power than others in society?
- What needs to change in order to eliminate violence against women?
- Why is it important to involve men in putting an end to violence against women?
- How would you define sexual assault?
- Can you think of any media portrayal or song lyrics which describe violence - why are they written like that?
If you would like assistance with arranging a discussion forum contact Chris Green at the White Ribbon Office.
 Activity 1 : Self Discovery
Objective
- Useful as a discussion starter.
- Focuses students ideas
Preparation
Some sheets of flip chart paper
Enough marker pens
Procedure
Leave out a number of sheets of paper which have two questions on:
- What do you like about being a Man?
- What do you not like about being a Man?
Ask students to write the response to these questions on the sheets provided
After all the responses have been obtained, (15-20 minutes) ask students to put the responses into groups which "say the same thing"
Then you can lead a discussion on the responses.
Discussion Questions
- What is the most positive thing about being a man?
- What is the most negative thing about being a man?
Time required: 1 hour
Activity 2: I agree with that !
Objective
- To create a discussion
- To introduce areas for discussion which may not have been discussed in other areas
Preparation
Make an enlarged copy of the statements below, and enlarge them, if possible.
On a large sheet of paper draw a line down the middle and on one side put True / Agree and on the other side False / Disagree.
Procedure
Deal out the statements equally and ask the students to place them on the sheet where they belong.
Ask all the students to look at the statements and, if they individually do not agree with the placing of a particular statement , they should turn it over.
For the statements which are left face up, everyone has agreed that they are in the correct place (else they would have been turned over). These can be read out to confirm their position
One at a time consider the statements which have been turned over.
Who placed the statement in its original position- who then turned it over - Why ?
Alternative Procedure
Ask students to place the statements on a continuum according to their strength of feeling with True at one end and Untrue at the other.
Time required: 1 hour
The opinions:
- All women like being whistled at
- There is too much pressure on women to have sex
- Some women wear clothes which mean they are begging for sex
- Men and women should be able to be friends without needing to have sex
- Women don't listen to men
- Men and women should do their fighting at home
- Men should challenge sexist behaviour
- Men and women bear equal responsibility for contraception
- I believe women should have equal rights
- Assertive women need to be put in their place
- Having a fight with your girl friend shouldn't be called Violence
- Music lyrics don't encourage violent behaviour
- There's no such thing as domestic violence against men
- I would never hit my girlfriend
- I am happy to show affection to male friends
- Marriage provides people with security
- Marriage helps develop a special relationship with one person
Activity 3: Re-engineering the Future
Objectives
- To give an opportunity for seeing other points of view
- To demonstrate the inequality can be just a result of birth
Preparation
Copy the sheet "Future decisions"
Cut up the statements and put then in a box.
Procedure
Describe the scenario "Engineering the Future"
Ask participants to take a statement out of the box and read it out
Generate a discussion
Alternative procedure
Split into small groups to discuss one statement each before discussing them in the large group
Time required : 1 hour
The Scenario: Engineering the Future
The Earth is becoming too polluted to live on. You have been chosen to travel to the star Fempatria to start a new colony of 500 people.
On the journey you are all put into deep hibernation, and one of the results is that you forget all your past life.
Your mind is active on the voyage, but you do not know whether you are now male or female.
On the journey you need as a group to make some rules for living on the new planet
Discussion Statements: Engineering the Future
- Women need to look after the children, and do the housework.
- War is necessary to decide who rules society
- The media should be controlled by the government to ensure that it doesn't say anything of which the authorities disapprove
- Land and Money should be shared out equally to ensure that power does not become dominated by just a few people
- Sex should be a shared agreed experience, only happening when both people want to.
- It is natural for men to make important decisions
Activity 4: Sex Stereotyping
Objectives
- To consider sex stereotyping in the media
- To develop critical media skills
- To consider how power relations are shaped by the media
Preparation
Provide scissors, glue or sellotape, a wide selection of magazines and sheets of large (A2) paper.
Procedure
- Ask participants for examples of sexual stereotyping (5 minutes).
- Divide into small groups and prepare posters/collages.(25 minutes)
Discussion Questions
- How do the sizes of the men and women compare ?
- What are the typical stereotypes of the men and women?
- What are the physical poses of men and women that you can see in the adverts ?
- Are there any pictures of conventional men and women? What do these represent?
The Gender Ads Website is an excellent resource for developing this discussion. It contains thousands of adverts including a section on Male Violence
http://www.genderads.com/
Alternative Activities / Development Activities Role play
Develop the roles of people from some of the adverts.
One group chooses one of the adverts to role play, by taking the poses of those within the advert.
The other group should guess which advert the first group is acting out.
Another variation is to suggest that the makes take the poses of the women in the adverts and the women take the poses of the men
Music / Video
Sexual stereotyping can also be analysed using music/tv/video.
Time required: 45 minutes
Activity 5 : That's my Music
Objective
- To engage students in analysing their own experience
- To understand the influence that music has on sexual stereotypes
- To offer positive messages
Preparation
Plan a week in advance in order to allow time for students to select their music
Ensure you have the means to playback what is brought.
Procedure
Ask students to bring in their favourite pieces of music
Work in small groups to answer the questions on the sheet.
Discussion Questions
- What is this song about?
- Describe the behaviour of the men in this song?
- How do the characters in the song relate to each other?
- Is this relationship healthy or unhealthy?
Time required: 1 hour
Activity 6: Mind Mapping Violence
Objective
- To help participants make the links between different types of violence
Preparation
Paper for each participant
Procedure
Generate ideas based upon the central idea of Violence. (5 minutes)
After the first links have been made, develop the next layer of links from each of the generated topics. e.g.
Videos - Street Crime
Politics - War - VIOLENCE - Shooting - Nightime
Insults
Discuss the conclusions
Time required: 1 hour
Activity 7: Sexual Harassment
Objective
- To help participants become more aware of the nature of harassment
- To consider the power relations involved in harassment
Preparation
Split into groups and provide worksheets for each participant
Procedure
Give each group sets of the worksheets and allow each individual 15 minutes to read and fill it in. Then ask the groups to discuss it among themselves for 15 minutes and prepare a response for the large group.
Discussion Questions
- What constitutes Harassment?
- Do comments on appearance constitute harassment?
What level of harassment would result in you intervening and taking action?
Time required: 1 hour
Sexual Harassment Worksheet 1
Mr Andrews is a Maths teacher who is not liked. He is not pleasant to students in most social situations, and is known to be extremely sarcastic to female students.
He has said "I don't know why girls study Maths, as they have no talent at it, they have no spatial awareness".
When Jane goes to Mr Andrews for some extra help in Maths, he doesn't take her seriously.
He responded "You don't need to pass your GCSE Maths- you are only just going to get married and have babies"
Jane felt really insulted by this response, and went to talk to her friends to ask them what she should do
- Is the behaviour of Mr Andrews sexual harassment?
- How can Jane respond?
- How can her friends support her?
- What would you do in Jane's position?
Sexual Harassment Worksheet 2
Peter and Andrew have been friends and work colleagues for three years, and are both in their early twenties.
Peter has known that Andrew is gay for 5 years, and for most people at work have the attitude Your sexuality is your own affair.
When a new work colleague Simon arrives, everyone assumes he will have the same reaction, but instead he responds "What do you mean - I can't work in the same office as a poof" and continues with a series of offensive remarks.
- Is this sexual harassment?
- What should Andrew do?
- What should Peter do?
- Why did Simon react like this?
- What should the reaction of other work colleagues be?
Sexual Harassment Worksheet 3
Susan is a school student who has just got a part time job at a local restaurant as a waitress. It has a relatively high turnover of staff. The owner Anthony is ten years older than her, and has been very supportive during her training period.
On several afternoons during the first two weeks Anthony asks her to stay late to help after work. She was ken to impress him, and agreed to stay on.
Susan was pleased as she learnt a lot about the business.
After a couple of days, Anthony made a remark which Susan was not very comfortable with. He said "You know you're a very attractive young woman. To get on in the hospitality business depends very much upon recommendations from your boss".
At the same time he put his arm around her.
She pulled away, and he grabbed her arm, and looked at her with a leer.
She ran for the door and left, slamming the door behind her.
She is extremely upset.
- What do you think most men would react in that situation?
- What would you do next?
- What should Susan do next?
Activity 8: What is Abusive Behaviour ?
Objective
- To discuss what is seen as acceptable behaviour by some and unacceptable by others
- To discuss the consequences of attitudes upon subsequent behaviour
Preparation
Copy enough sets of statements so that each pair has their own set of statements. If possible cut the statements up beforehand so that they are available to be discussed and placed individually.
Procedure
Participants in pairs, take a piece of flip chart paper, and a set of the provided statements. Draw a line across the paper. Label one end of the line Acceptable , and the other end of the line Unacceptable. Arrange the statements along the line in order ranging from most acceptable to most unacceptable.
Discussion Questions
What are you able to do if you find one of your colleagues, friends, neighbours behaving in ways you find unacceptable ?
Time required: 1 hour
What is Abusive Behaviour Statements:
Is he an abusive man ?
Put the statements below into order along the acceptable/ non acceptable continuum.
- He is excessively jealous of his lover/partner
- He criticises what his partner wears
- He criticises how his partner behaves
- He likes to drive fast and be reckless
- He becomes angry easily
- He believes it is the male role to make decisions
- He believes it is the male role to control the money
- He believes a man has the right to choose where his partner goes out
- He makes threats about hitting his partner
- He has deliberately broken her possessions
- He has hit his partner, no matter whether or not he was sorry afterwards.
Activity 9: Healthy relationships
Objectives
To identify the characteristics of a healthy relationship
Preparation
Prepare enough copies of the Healthy relationships scenario to provide one each to participants
Procedure
Distribute the scenarios and ask participants to position the relationships on the each of the three continuum lines- Respect, Communication , and Physical and Emotional boundary setting.
It may require a discussion of what emotional and physical boundary setting involves before the exercise, or this may evolve afterwards
Time required: 40minutes
Healthy relationships Scenario 1
Steve and Tracey have been dating since they were 12 years old, some four years ago. Tonight they are at a school disco. Steve spends most of his time hanging out with a bunch of his male friends.
While Tracey is talking to some of her girlfriends, Tony, who has been helping her out with some computing problems, asks her for a dance. After the dance Tracey goes off to get a drink. When she comes back Steve has appeared, and he tells her to put on her jacket, as the top she's got on is too revealing. She does what he asks. Then he accuses her of only wearing that top because she wanted to impress Tony.
Tracey replied "Don't be so stupid," and gets up to leave.
Steve grabbed her arm, at which point Tracey wrenches her arm free and leaves the disco.
Steve runs after here saying he didn't mean it , but that he'd seen Tony staring at her
They make it up , and as they walk home Steve said "If you didn't make me so mad, I wouldn't get like that"
How do you rate their relationship in terms of Respect, Communication and Boundary setting.
Put a T on the scale for Tracey, and an S on the scale for Steve.
| Respect : |
Scale of 0-10 |
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0 = No Respect |
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10 |
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10 = Very respectful |
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| Communication: |
Scale of 0-10 |
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0 = Limited Communication |
0 |
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10 |
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10 = Excellent Communication |
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| Boundary Setting : |
Scale of 0-10 |
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0 = No Respect for
boundaries |
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10 |
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10 = Understand
each others boundaries |
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Healthy relationships Scenario 2
Andrew and Linda have been dating for three weeks. They are at a party on Saturday night, and towards the end of the night Andrew's friend Joe offers to drive them home. Linda knows that Joe has had too much to drink and tells Andrew that she doesn't want to go till later. Andrew gets cross because only 10 minutes before she had said that she wanted to go soon. Linda wants to speak to Andrew out of the earshot of Joe, but they are too close together.
5 minutes later she is able to take Andrew to one side and explains that although she is ready to leave, she doesn't want to be driven home by Joe, because of his habit of driving when drunk.
Andrew understands her concerns and suggests that they call a cab to take them home.
Linda agrees.
How do you rate their relationship in terms of Respect, Communication and Boundary setting?
Put an A on the scale for Andrew, and an L on the scale for Linda.
| Respect : |
Scale of 0-10 |
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0 = No Respect |
0 |
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5 |
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10 |
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10 = Very respectful |
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| Communication: |
Scale of 0-10 |
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0 = Limited Communication |
0 |
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5 |
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10 |
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10 = Excellent Communication |
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| Boundary Setting : |
Scale of 0-10 |
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0 = No Respect for
boundaries |
0 |
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5 |
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10 |
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10 = Understand
each others boundaries |
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Activity 10: Joining in
Objectives
- To consider the ways in which women and men are working to end violence against women.
- To understand that men are being asked to take responsibility, not being blamed.
Preparation
Research some articles about male violence. Pre read them so that you are able to lead a discussion.
Procedure
Distribute some articles about male violence, (downloadable from the website) or collected by participants.
Start to develop an action plan for involvement.
Time required: 1 hour
Discussion Questions
- Do I know someone who is affected by male violence?
- Are the effects of male violence damaging to society?
- Would I be happier if I was doing something about this?
- Are there things that women and men could do together?
- Are there things that women and men should be doing apart?
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