Initially, our webinar topic was about gender equality which can make some forms in society, education, family, etc and is related to one of the most important problems all around the world. And our first discussion centered an advertisement called “ If Women’s Roles In Ads Were Played By Men”. Actually as soon as I saw this advertisement, it evoked me the reflection of the commodification of the woman in society. Because people want to see female figures in all aspects since the female is accepted more attractive, appealing, and so on. Besides, the woman has some roles are worn by society. When I have thought about gender inequality, I constantly have remembered “ Orlando “ by Virginia Woolf and started to think about the theme of the book because Virginia Woolf is trying to voice all the women in the world because of patriarchal dominance. Also, it tells us by changing genders, Orlando is able to reflect upon the different roles and experiences of each gender. So, I can say that this work is really a masterpiece in terms of showing the roles, expectations of each gender. Especially in our society, the woman figure is constantly torn between what society expects her to be and what she really wants to be because there are some stereotyped roles that are given the woman ranging from looking after her children to cooking.
After this webinar, I have started to analyze my own teaching process and the materials I use in my courses (coursebook, texts, etc.) critically. For example, I have recognized that I try to mix my students while grouping them because when I was in my high school years, my teacher divided the class basing on gender criteria like a girl should be matched with any other girl or vice versa. Additionally, I adopt the idea of giving some responsibilities to the students but not limited their gender roles like having my male students sweeping the class or having my female students carry the books to help me in order to give some messages, for example, the females can be strong, carry something by their own, etc. Another dimension is short stories that I bring the class because I strongly believe that stories, fairy tales have vital roles in the children’s life. That’s why this webinar inspired me and I have thought the using these stories in my classes in a different way I mean changing some scenes. After this webinar, I checked the units are placed on the coursebook and I have realized that there is a unit named “ Occupations “ in 6th grade but again a female is depicted for hairdresser, on the contrary, a male character depicted for driver so I will touch this point changing occupations’ roles in a drama activity with my 6 graders. These kinds of biases may not be broken easily because each and every student have cultural luggage but when we integrate this issue into the course it becomes easier and permanent.
Last but not least there are some useful tips that we can employ in our classes about how we can integrate gender equalities in the course like promoting mixed group work activities and cooperation between each gender and being a role model for students as a teacher. So no matter how much the teacher is aware of gender inequality, without showing it to the students via some activities, stories, responsibilities, raising awareness towards gender equality stands beyond the society’s expectations.