Kids' minds are blown in a PSA designed to change the idea that jobs are tied to gender.
Teachers asked kids to draw a firefighter, a surgeon, and a pilot, then surprised them with the real deal.
A campaign pushes back against limitation and gender roles.
This article originally appeared on 09.01.16
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? A firefighter? A rockstar? What about a veterinarian or a fighter pilot?
While you were dreaming up your future career, did the fact that it typically attracts workers of a certain gender influence you at all? You might be quick to say "no way," but gender stereotypes likely played a part in your development even if you weren't aware of it.
In #RedrawTheBalance, a campaign from Inspiring the Future, a group of kids were asked to draw people in various careers like firefighters or surgeons.
Here's what they drew:
A surgeon.
A child draws a surgeon as a man.
Photo from YouTube video
A firefighter.
Children attach gender to different jobs they draw based on stereotypes.
Photo from YouTube video
Notice a trend?
According to several studies, children tend to be more rigid in their gender stereotyping, which may be because they have a more "absolutist sense of rules" than adults do.
Children learn this stereotyping behavior from lots of places — parents, friends, and, of course, the media they consume. Unfortunately, the stereotype that certain jobs are for certain genders still prevails to this day, which is a shame because it means that kids grow up thinking there are certain jobs they can't do because of their gender.
There is good news, however. While young kids are impressionable, that doesn't mean it's too late to correct those impressions — sometimes all it takes is them meeting one person doing one job that doesn't fit a stereotype to change the way they see the world.
Women demonstrating that all types of careers are open for exploration.
Photo from YouTube video
That's what happened when these kids get their minds blown when people who do the jobs they illustrated walk into the room and they aren't exactly who they expected to see.
Children appear excited and interested during the PSA.
If you'd like to see what happened for yourself, click on the link to the video below:
Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
This article originally appeared on 04.27.16
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
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