Maria Murumaa-Mengel (maria.murumaa@ut.ee<\/mark><\/a>), Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tartu
Kaarel Lott (kaarel.lott@ut.ee<\/mark><\/a>), Junior Research Fellow of Digital Media Studies at the University of Tartu<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This material is useful for talking to young people about content creators like Andrew Tate and gender roles in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You will find the following:<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Ready-to-use lesson\/training\/quiz materials, six exercises: 1. Teaching materials<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Look at the graph showing the divergence in values between young men and women in different countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Such reviews are usually the result of an aggregated analysis of many different studies. For example, either national or international comparative surveys are carried out, asking male and female respondents (recently also non-binary desirable) about their political preferences, perceived gender roles, general value preferences (material, collective, educational, hedonistic, etc.). Nuances on this issue are provided by qualitative research, where in-depth interviews seek to understand the examples, experiences and general patterns of thought that people express in their responses. For more details on examples of studies, with a focus on methodology, see for example here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Discuss together: <\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. To what extent and if at all can such divergence be seen in your country? Conduct a vote or a poll (e.g. by physically sitting in a circle in the classroom) asking students to draw on stereotypes about what is usually considered masculine and feminine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the exercise, discuss together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019ve talked a little about gender and its social construction with young people, you can start to play with reversing gender stereotypes. Together with the students, create (social) media content that would reverse gender roles and gender stereotypes: talk about men\/boys as they talk about women\/girls and vice versa. As a separate issue, what images and stereotypes are spread about non-binary people can be discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a preparatory task at home, young people can be asked to find different media texts or sort them out by sharing a screen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Man Who Has It All social media accounts can be used for inspiration:<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the warm-up exercises, once the group is quite comfortable with each other, the topic can lead to concrete personal observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important to underline that noticing and talking about gender stereotypes helps us to spot unfair beliefs that can be disagreed with and not followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a group interested in the topic, you can read\u00a0this interview<\/mark><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For young people who already have some experience of computer games:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Play a computer game for X hours, where you can assign a gender to your character, change his\/her appearance and interact with other players while playing. Design your character as a distinctly opposite sex. What options do you have? See how this gaming experience differs from your normal experience. What will you do differently? How do others interact with you? What are the differences between creating a character as a male and female player?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a supplementary task, an interview task could be given, for example, to interview three opposing players and ask them about their general experiences and observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By showing how easily manipulated the videos and other social media of many of the misogynistic content creators are, it becomes clearer exactly how we are being trapped. By giving young media users critical glasses, by showing how hugely predictable the messages of manfluencers are, a kind of immunity and healthy scepticism can be built up towards such narratives. An entertaining way of carrying out this exercise is the so-called Manfluencer Bingo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The students themselves could bring examples of local manfluencers and around the world and then they could watch and analyse them together with a bingo sheet. You could complete the bingo grid together, analysing for each category why this and why not the other way round. For this exercise, bear in mind that it is worth starting to dissect the content of manfluencers once they have become a topic of discussion among young people. Bringing the content to young people on your own runs the risk of inadvertently popularising it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The underlying logic of the exercise is inspired by this article:: Vail, K. (2023). Preventing online radicalization and extremism in boys: A conversation with Pasha Dashtgard. Phi Delta Kappan, 104(7), 30-35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Design: Inger Klesment and Gretel Juhansoo<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a text:
1.1. Widening value gap
1.2 Masculinity and femininity as social constructs
1.3. The backwards world
1.4. Personal experiences of injustice
1.5. Shifting perspectives
1.6 Manfluencer bingo
1.7 Tate\u2019s messages
2. Further reading recommendations<\/p>\n\n\n\n1.1. Widening value gap between men and women<\/mark><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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2. How can it be measured in sociological terms? What should we ask? Put together a survey and carry it out in your school. For inspiration, see for example the ICCS survey for Estonia 2022 (in particular, look at what is asked under the relevant topic).
3. If such trends are worsening, what does this mean and entail: for the individual? For society? for you? for your mother? for your father? for your mother? for your father? for your mother? for a friend\/loved one?
4. How do young people think the situation could be improved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n1.2. Masculinity and femininity as social constructs<\/mark><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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1.3. The backwards world<\/mark><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n1.4. Personal experiences of injustice<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n1.5. Shifting perspectives<\/mark><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
1.6.\u00a0 Manfluencer Bingo<\/mark><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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