Sashi’s Story

Objective:
• To enable participants to re ect on their own values and priorities in relation to gender issues

• To analyse the sources and in uences which lead to different moral positions or priorities

• To understand how individuals become socialised into gender-based stereotyping and prescribed
gender roles

Her mother tells her that she does not want to

Handout
Somewhere in a fish town lives a beautiful girl
called Sashi.
She is in love with the handsome Vikram, who
lives on the other side of an enormous river.
Earlier in the year, all the bridges across this
river were swept away by a terrible flood, and
all the boats except one were damaged or
destroyed.
Sashi asks Rahul, the owner of the only
remaining boat, to take her to the other side of
the river. Rahul agrees, on one condition: he
insists that Sashi sleep with him.
interfere in Sashi’s private business. In
desperation, Sashi sleeps with Rahul, who then
takes her across the river.
The joyful Sashi rushes to Vishal to embrace
him and proceeds to tell him everything that
happened. Vishal pushes her away roughly,
and Sashi runs off, sobbing.
Not far from Vishal’s house, Sashi meets Parvez,
Vishal’s best friend.
She tells him everything that has happened.
Parvez punches Vishal for what he has done to
Sashi, and then walks away with her...

Sashi is confused. She does not know what to

do and runs to her mother to ask for advice.

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Instructions:

1) Introduce the activity and its objectives. Ask them to read the story individually and to rank the behaviour of
each character (Sashi, Vikram, Rahul, Sashi’s mother and Parvez) along a scale from ‘best’ to ‘worst’. For
example, they might decide that Sashi’s behaviour was the worst, Parvez’s was the next worst, Rahul’s was next
– and so on. Give participants 10 minutes for this task.

2) When everyone has decided on their individual ranking, ask participants to get together in small groups
(between 3 to 6 people) and compare and discuss their results with others. The task of the small groups is to
come up with a common ranking – a list that everyone in the small group can agree on. The group should
create a common ranking on the basis of shared understanding and consensus, rather than using, for
example, a majority voting.

3) Ask each group to present the results of their discussions to the plenary. Groups should give brief
arguments for their commonly agreed ranking.

Debriefing and evaluation:

• When you worked individually, how did you decide what was good and what was bad behaviour?

• Was it dif cult to agree on a ranking that suited everyone?

• What were the challenges or blocks which made agreement dif cult?

• What role do personal values play in such a process?

• Where do personal values, such as those re ected in this activity, come from?

• Can you identify any prescribed gender roles in the story?

• Which gender related concerns or dilemmas are raised by this story?

• Are any of these concerns present in the context where you live? How do issues such as these affect young
people?

• Which human rights issues can you identify in the story? Do you think human rights are useful when dealing
with moral dilemmas related to gender? Explain your answer

• How can we support young people to deal with social pressures relating to morality and gender?

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 Digital Media Bash

Objective:
• To share and discuss the use of violence in the digital media

• To learn how to recognise hate speech and act against it

• To develop gender awareness among participants

Overview:
This activity uses research techniques to address the presence and use of violence in the digital media.

Instructions:
1. Inform participants that they are going to analyse digital media using a pair of “gender / violence
glasses”.

2. Start the activity with a simple brainstorm, asking participants about examples of how violence and
gender-based violence are presented online. Write down the answers on the ip-chart. You could ask
the group if they have ever heard of hate speech. If they have not, or if they are unclear about it,
provide them with the de nition in the glossary.

3. Split participants into smaller groups of 4-5 people and tell them that each group will be given a
different web site and will analyse it using the “Research and analysis tool”. Participants should look at
different content on the web sites they have been given – for example, articles, pictures, photos,
videos, memes, advertisements, comments, etc. Provide the group with links to the web sites to be
analysed.

4. Ask the entire group in plenary to compare their ndings and draw conclusions on the use of
violence and its impact for young people of different genders.

5. After the presentations, go to the debrie ng and evaluation

Debriefing and evaluation:

1. Start with a few general questions on how participants felt about the activity, and then move to
explore how online gender-based violence can be challenged and addressed. Use some of the
following guiding questions:

2. Have you ever looked at the issue of violence through gender glasses before? If not, what did you
learn by taking this new perspective? Did anything surprise you?

3. Is the material found and displayed representative of issues in your community?

4. Did you nd any gender stereotypes in the web sites? If yes, what were they?

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5. Were there more examples of violence committed by men? If yes, why do you think this is?

6. Were there any “invisible” groups (e.g. LGBT+)? If yes, which? Why do you think they were not represented?

7. Did you nd examples of hate speech related to gender?

8. Why do people use gender-related hate speech?

9. Which human rights may be violated when people use hate speech online?

10. Should hate speech be prohibited on digital media? Explain your answer

10. How can the media be in uenced to change the way it presents violence, stereo- typed images of
perpetrators of violence, and different genders?
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 Good, Better, Best

Objective:
• To learn how people become socialised to regard certain qualities as feminine and others as
masculine

• To understand why society considers certain qualities to be ”positive” or ”desirable”, while other
characteristics are considered to be “negative” or ”undesirable”

• To discover how the widely adopted binary approach affects non-binary people

Overview:
This activity looks at how gender stereotypes affect the lives of young people, and at the value society
places on “feminine” and ”masculine” qualities. Participants use sets of cards to discuss which qualities
are more commonly regarded as masculine or feminine.

Instructions:
1. Inform the participants about the activity.

2. Start with handing out sheets listing adjectives and attributes of a person like “emotional” or
“entrepreneur”.

3. Split them into smaller groups and ask them to classify the adjectives under ‘Masculine’ and
‘Feminine’ based on how either they or society sees them

4. Ask them to attribute “good” and “bad” qualities to each adjective.

5. After the presentations, go to the debrie ng and evaluation

Debriefing and evaluation:

1. How did you feel during the activity?

2. Does anything about the results surprise you?

3. In which column – feminine or masculine – are there more (-) signs next to the qualities? What does
this tell you?

4. Why are some (feminine of masculine) qualities less desirable ? How do you think this comes
about?

5. Do you consider this characterisation of “masculine” and ”feminine” qualities to be an accurate

classi cation, which would be true for all time and for all places?

6. How do we learn gender stereotypes?

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7. In your opinion, how do gender stereotypes affect our behaviour, and how do they affect the way we treat
or judge other people?

8. Gender Matters Manual on addressing gender-based violence affecting young people

9. What are some of the consequences of gender stereotypes for women, for men. Can you give examples
from real life?

10. How are gender stereotypes linked to discrimination, violence and hate speech? Can you think of
examples of gender-based discrimination, violence or hate speech? What impact do these phenomena have
on gender equality and the enjoyment of human rights?

11. What can be done to avoid gender stereotyping? What can be done to avoid the negative consequences
of stereotyping?