Exploring Gender Roles and Identity: A Historical and Geographical Perspective
A 60-minute session on how being a man or a woman has looked different across centuries and across places: pink once meant boys, kings wore pearls, husbands in Meghalaya move into their wife's home, a market in Imphal has been run by mothers for centuries, and daughters are starting to light their fathers' pyres. If the roles keep changing, how much of ours is nature, and how much is simply where and when we were born? Twelve independent cards; open three or four.
The opening question
Growing up, what was one thing in your house that was “only for boys” or “only for girls”?
Everyone in the room answers this in one line before any card is opened. Write the answers down; you will come back to them.
The cards
12 ways into the topic
Each card is independent. Your group votes on which to open, and four or five is plenty for an hour. Behind every card sit three prompts, one at a time, that only appear once it is opened on the board. Unopened cards keep for next time.
- 1
Pink And Blue For Babies
A baby is on the way. Relatives buy pink if it's a girl and blue if it's a boy. About a hundred years ago, some shops advised exactly the opposite.
- 2
Men Wearing Jewellery
In old paintings, Indian kings wear pearl necklaces, earrings and armlets.
- 3
Men Crying In Public
A boy falls off his bicycle and starts to cry. His uncle says, “Boys don't cry.” Yet in the old epics, the greatest heroes weep openly.
- 4
Living With The Wife's Family
In parts of Meghalaya, the husband moves into his wife's family home, and the children take their mother's surname.
- 5
Chefs And Home Cooks
At home, your mother or grandmother cooks every single day. At a fancy restaurant, the head chef in the tall white hat is almost always a man.
- 6
The Housewife As Tradition
Your great-grandmother may have planted rice from sunrise, then come home to cook. Today, someone says a woman staying at home is “our tradition”.
- 7
Men Playing Women On Stage
In your school play, a boy had to play the queen, and everyone laughed.
- 8
India's Third Gender Traditions
A group of hijras arrive to sing and bless a new baby. Your grandmother insists they are paid well, because their blessing matters.
- 9
Saying “It's Our Culture”
You ask why the women in your family always eat after the men. An elder says, “It's our culture.” And that's the end of the conversation.
- 10
Daughters Performing Last Rites
Your grandfather has died. He had only daughters.
- 11
Gender Roles After Moving Abroad
Back home, your cousin never entered the kitchen. Two years after moving to Canada, he cooks, cleans and does the school run.
- 12
Why Some Roles Are Natural
Your uncle says, “Go anywhere in the world. Men do the heavy work and women raise the children. It's nature, not culture.”
The line to leave with
If you had been born two hundred years earlier, or two thousand kilometres away, which of your ideas about being a man or a woman would you still hold?
More boards,more ways in.
Every discussion we have run has a board behind it. Browse them by topic.