Gendering Social Work - Essay Example

Gender Social Work Total Number of Words 010 Proposed Activity Target Audiences After reading “What are the Politics of Gender?” by Holmes (2007) and “Post-Feminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the New Gender Regime” by McRobbie (2008), the target audiences for the activity I have personally designed would be the young men and women between the age group of 16 to 18 years of age. Title and Purpose of the Activity The title of the proposed activity is “Privilege of Men1, Sexism2, and Feminism3”. The proposed activity will analyze what sexism is, identify its privilege on young men and women between the age group of 16 to 18 years old, including the movements that focus on women. Objectives 1. Define and understand the concept of “feminism”; 2. Assist the male students between 16 to 18 years old to have a better understanding about their privilege and role in feminism; and 3. Emancipate the students from being influenced by sexism mentality. Estimated Time-Frame for this Activity Two sessions / multiple sessions Proposed Class Schedule Activity Allotted Time 1. Short introduction 2. Breaking the Male Privilege exercise 3. Group discussion regarding issues on male privilege 4. Read article(s) related to the impact of sexism and feminism on men and women (attached in Appendix I on pages 6 – 8) 5. Group discussion regarding the impact of feminism on men and women 5 mins. 5 mins. 15 mins. 20 mins. 15 mins. About the Proposed Activity Divide the students into two groups: (1) male students; and (2) female students. Before starting the group activity, call on the female students and instruct them to actively participate in the group discussion. Inform the female students to keep on talking while the male student(s) participate in the group discussion. Without mentioning the main purpose and objectives of this activity, the group of young men and women will be asked to read “Jazz ’03 Proudly Salutes Women in Jazz“. After allowing the students to read the article for 20 minutes, breaking the male privilege exercise will start by rarely calling on the male students to participate in the group discussion throughout the exercise. In case one or two male students is called to participate in the group discussion, make sure that each one of the male student will be given only a limited time to talk. During the last 15 minutes of the entire activity, start an open-discussion with the students regarding how they personally felt during the group discussion specifically on how the male students were given the chance to participate in the group discussion versus the female counterpart. For this particular question, take note which group complains more than the other group. As soon as the proctor receives a comment from each student, it is necessary to write down the comment of each student on the board. This will allow the students and the proctor to have a better analysis on how the group discussion went. After summarizing the students’ comment, explain to them the purpose and main objective of this exercise. As we all know, sexism is very common in our society not only within our own family circle each time we express an opinion but also within the political and business world. Feminist groups have long time been trying to remove sexism mentality in our society. With this in mind, allow the male students to realize that gender inequality or sexism which needs to be eradicated the soonest time possible. Few minutes before ending the proposed activity, the proctor should ask related questions which could allow the female students to share their personal opinion regarding feminism and sexism. For example: Ask the female students whether or not they speak confidently in big group or around men? If not, allow the student to express why she feels incompetent to talk in big groups. It is also necessary to ask the male students how they feel being male students and whether or not this exercise opened their consciousness regarding sexism and the number of feminist groups that exist in our society. Critical Reflection Part of the UK government’s social policy objective is to promote equal rights in work opportunities. In relation to the National Occupational Standard, this activity can be useful in promoting equal work and employment opportunity for men and women. Other than the continuous effort in promoting work diversity and gender equal rights, the European Union’s European Social Fund is also implementing the importance of developing the “European Social Fund Gender Equality and Equal Opportunities Mainstreaming plans for England and Gibraltar between the years 2007 to 2013” (Lambert 2008). In relation to gender equality within the working environment, the proposed activity presented in this study actually prepares the male students to become aware of women’s equal rights within the society. By letting the male students experience how it is to be treated as second-class citizens; a portion of the male students who participated in the exercise programme is expected to become aware of gender issues in real life situations. For this reason, it is safe to conclude that this type of activity strongly supports the objectives of UK government’s social policy. Upon completing this activity, I have learned that sexism is the main cause of gender inequality. It is sexism that majority of the feminist groups have long time been fighting to change. I also realized that it is important to teach the concept of feminism and the importance of abolishing sexism mentality among the young individuals. I realized that the use of this strategy is useful and effective in terms of making the next generation become more flexible and more open to the mentality that both men and women have equal rights to move around our society. Appendix I – Reading Material Jazz ’03 proudly salutes Women in Jazz By James Hale Long considered the great American experiment in democracy – informally desegregated long before Jackie Robinson broke the “colour line” in sports – jazz harbours a dirty secret concerning the role that women have played in its 100-year evolution. Aside from singers, whose role was tightly circumscribed on the bandstand and in the studio, women were systematically excluded from participating as equals – regardless of ability. Today, although you are still more likely to find photogenic singers like Jane Monheit, Norah Jones and Diana Krall than their less-glamorous sisters on the covers of jazz publications, things are changing, thanks to shifting social values and a generation of female musicians who demand to be heard. Any survey of women in jazz would be wanting without a roll call of those who paid the cost of lost gigs, missed opportunities and stifled dreams inside the music business prior to the 1970s. There’s no better place to start than Mary Lou Williams, whose compositions were performed by Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington but who never found fame on their level. Although a brilliant pianist, she remains overshadowed by a number of influential men she tutored at the keyboard. Hazel Scott was another first-rate pianist, enrolled at Julliard at age eight and the host of her own radio program at 16. Arguably the equal of Oscar Peterson, she is far better known as the wife of controversial black leader Adam Clayton Powell than as a musician. North Dakota native Mary Osborne is a vital link between guitarists Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery, yet she spent her prime years in anonymity, working as CBS’s house guitarist until she dropped out of jazz altogether to teach in 1962. Vi Redd, a highly lyrical alto saxophonist from the Charlie Parker school, was another talented player who dropped out of the game to pursue a teaching career – a more traditional role for women. Sadly, there are hundreds more you won’t find in the pages of most historical studies of jazz. Looking at the field of older women who remain active in jazz it’s still easy to point to musicians like pianist Joanne Brackeen – a contemporary of Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea with a fraction of their notoriety – and wonder why jazz turned its back on women when it was so open to men with personality quirks and chemical addictions that made them pariahs outside of music. Author and scholar Angela Davis stated it eloquently at a 2002 panel convened in San Francisco to study the issue: “Jazz (is) the last artform to recognize the significance of feminism. At the beginning of the 21st century, jazz women are still considered the exception. Even though there are vast numbers of women of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds playing jazz on every instrument and in every genre, women continue to be purged from the jazz imagination, except as vocalists or sometimes pianists.” Fellow scholar Sherrie Tucker, whose book Swing Shift examines the phenomenon of the all-woman bands of the ‘40s, echoed Davis’s comments: “How is it possible to still imagine jazz (without women)? How is it that we can have a 19-hour documentary on the history of jazz where women are not musicians? There were women in Ken Burns’s JAZZ, but they served to construct the male jazz hero in the roles of bad wives, bad mothers, prostitutes and as vocalists who were not so much musicians as tragic women.” It is not surprising that Burns’s film missed the contributions of important contemporary women instrumentalists like Carla Bley, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Maria Schneider and Jane Bunnett since his narrative stops with the rise of jazz-rock fusion in the early ‘70s. It was only as acoustic music began to re-assert itself in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s that a new crop of women began to assume leadership roles. Both Bley and Akiyoshi led highly influential orchestras that attracted many of their best male peers as contributors, opening the door for Schneider, who inherited the role of orchestral wizard from her former mentor, Gil Evans. Players like Bley also pointed the way for other women like Brackeen, Amina Claudine Myers and Jane Ira Bloom, who in turn were joined by a younger generation, including drummers Cindy Blackman, Terri Lyne Carrington and Susie Ibarra, alto saxophonist Christine Jensen and her trumpeter sister, Ingrid. Certainly, the feminist movement in general played a role in changing the attitudes of all involved: male musicians, managers, record companies executives, critics and magazine editors included. More importantly, though, young women like Ibarra, Schneider, Bunnett and the Jensens began to assert their right to express themselves through their music and have it heard. Ibarra, a Filipino-American who grew up in Texas, took inspiration from her mother, who had challenged the norm for women of her generation and entered medical school at age 16. Schneider, a native of Minnesota who studied at the Eastman School of Music, was encouraged by Gil Evans’s example to strike out on her own and refuse to sublimate her musical vision to the will of others. Bunnett, a freethinker and tenacious iconoclast who was bounced from several high schools in Toronto before finding a place in music, believes passionately in the power of improvisation as expression. Still, she’s highly pragmatic when it comes to what it takes to make it in the music business. "There’s still a quota system when it comes to women. I’ve tried to get into festivals and been told, ‘We already have our woman headliner.’ It makes you cringe." She worries that many young women still don’t get the opportunities that come to their male counterparts. "If you’re as talented and as serious as musicians like Ingrid Jensen or Renee Rosnes you can break down the barriers that are there. I think that when you look at the women who are able to make a living in jazz, which is a very marginalized art, it’s still true that you have to be twice as good if you’re a woman." Twice as good, that is, if you want to play things by the old rules. Increasingly, young women – and men – are finding new ways to express themselves through jazz and reach an audience. Ingrid Jensen has been vocal about wanting to break the tried-and-true model. She openly shuns the industry machinery that puts provocatively posed singers on the covers of jazz magazines. "When I see one of those magazines feature a woman like that I just feel really sad. A lot of the young players I meet at clinics these days don’t buy into that at all. They don’t care if their trumpet player is female or if the guitarist is gay or the drummer is a lesbian. It’s all about the music for them." The more these young players – musicians like the expressive Toronto-based trumpeter Lina Allemano and the remarkable violist Tanya Kalmanovitch – move into the public eye on their own terms, the more those who remain tied to tradition will be forced to either recognize them as equals or make a legitimate stand against them. Combined with the exceptionally strong field of women singers on the scene today – ranging from promising newcomers like Ottawa native Leah State through established stars like Cassandra Wilson to polished veterans like Sheila Jordan – the powerful corps of female instrumentalists is well positioned to institute long-overdue and lasting change to the face of jazz.   Source: Hale 2010 References Hale, J. (2010). Feminist Journal. Retrieved May 22, 2010, from Jazz ’03 proudly salutes Women in Jazz: http://www.feministjournal.com/women_in_jazz.html. Holmes, M. (2007). What is Gender? Sociological Approaches. Sage Publications Ltd. Lambert, K. (2008, July). European Union. Retrieved May 22, 2010, from http://www.feministjournal.com/women_in_jazz.html: http://www.esf.gov.uk/_docs/gender_equality_equal_opps_plan_2007_2010.pdf. McRobbie, A. (2008). The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. Sage Publications Ltd. Read More