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As a Caribbean woman, I was taught very well defined gender roles. Whether or not those played out in real life is another blog post for another day.\u00a0 When my brother played a sport, he got the best of everything \u2013 equipment, shoes\u2026 when it was my turn? Not so much.\u00a0 \u201cWhy am I buying my girl child gym boots anyway?\u201d They would reluctantly buy my basketball hightops, but with little fanfare, and even less money spent.\u00a0 The same went for my soccer cleats\u2026 I brushed this off as just the way things were, but I couldn\u2019t imagine saying this to my li\u2019l bit. Caribbean women are used to getting this contradictory information from their parents. You can (and must) do and be whatever you want to be, and must not let anyone deter you. (YES!) However, men get special privileges and consideration when it comes to just about everything.\u00a0 (WHAT?) It was really very confusing.<\/p>\n
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This morning, I gave my daughter a writing prompt that opened her eyes just a little wider to how the world sees her as a girl. I am in law school, and when appropriate, we talk about the cases that I am reading. We have talked about equal protection and Title IX before, so when I gave her the opportunity to do research and write about her ideas on wage equality in professional sports, she went straight to her copy of the Constitution. I gave her some statistics and the text of Title IX. Armed with the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and some of the history books on her shelf (she\u2019s a big history buff), she set out to prove that women deserve equal pay in professional sports too.<\/p>\n
Every now and then she\u2019d run into the room and ask questions like, \u201cWhat are government subsidies? What is a salary cap?\u201d In between questions, she\u2019d yell out from her room, \u201cWell how unfair is THIS? So guys make WHAT? Did you know that women only make\u2026\u201d Before I knew it, her brainstorming note page was full, she had mapped out her argument, and her first paragraph was done.\u00a0 I just sat there looking at my Administrative Law outline wishing that I could be as passionate about the Administrative Procedures Act as she was about this.<\/p>\n
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These writing\/discussion prompts are only starting points. Feel free to alter these to reflect the issues that affect your family and your community specifically. <\/strong>I encourage you to add a racial component as well, since race also has a major role within the gender equality issue. You can use these prompts to spark discussion at the dinner table, get the conversation going on long car rides, or for writing prompts for homeschoolers.\u00a0 It is easy to get girls fired up about gender equality, but nothing is really going to change unless everyone champions the cause. My boys will be working on these writing prompts as well. Here are just a few writing prompts and topics to research, consider, and discuss, that we are doing this spring and summer, as a family. Hopefully, this will get us thinking, as a family, about how we can support each other.<\/p>\n Here are some topics to think about before and during your discussion of the writing prompts.<\/span><\/p>\n WAGE EQUALITY<\/strong><\/p>\n Professional sports<\/span><\/p>\n Marketing<\/p>\n Salary caps<\/p>\n Why more value is placed on men\u2019s sports<\/p>\n Which sports pay equally and which ones do not<\/p>\n Leadership in sports governing bodies<\/p>\n Government subsidies for professional sports (stadiums, tax breaks)<\/p>\n Title IX<\/p>\n Technology<\/span><\/p>\n Final product has no relation to gender<\/p>\n Number of women in science\/tech<\/p>\n Respect and trust of women in science<\/p>\n Women who were science and tech pioneers<\/p>\n Are women discouraged from being scientists<\/p>\n Number of women in leadership in science\/tech<\/p>\n Statistics showing wage gap in technology based jobs<\/p>\n GENERAL<\/strong><\/p>\n Where does gender bias come from<\/p>\n History of gender bias<\/p>\n History of women in the workplace<\/p>\n Impact of family on income and vice versa<\/p>\n New gender roles and responsibilities in the household<\/p>\n Wage gap statistics<\/p>\n Salary negotiation<\/p>\n GROWING UP\/EDUCATION\/GLOBAL<\/strong><\/p>\n Initiatives to improve women\u2019s lives in poor countries<\/p>\n Roles of women in various countries<\/p>\n Global poverty statistics<\/p>\n Education statistics<\/p>\n Income disparities<\/p>\n Social status of women and girls<\/p>\n Matriarchal societies vs. Patriarchal societies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a Caribbean woman, I was taught very well defined gender roles. Whether or not those played out in real life is another blog post for another day.\u00a0 When my brother played a sport, he got the best of everything \u2013 equipment, shoes\u2026 when it was my turn? Not so much.\u00a0 \u201cWhy am I buying my girl child gym boots anyway?\u201d They would reluctantly buy my basketball hightops, but with little fanfare, and even less money spent.\u00a0 The same went for my soccer cleats\u2026 I brushed this off as just the way things were, but I couldn\u2019t imagine saying this to my li\u2019l bit. Caribbean women are used to getting this contradictory information from their parents. You can (and must) do and be whatever you want to be, and must not let anyone deter you. (YES!) However, men get special privileges and consideration when it comes to just about everything.\u00a0 (WHAT?) It was really very confusing.<\/p>\n This morning, I gave my daughter a writing prompt that opened her eyes just a little wider to how the world sees her as a girl. I am in law school, and when appropriate, we talk about the cases that I am reading. We have talked about equal protection and Title IX before, so when I gave her the opportunity to do research and write about her ideas on wage equality in professional sports, she went straight to her copy of the Constitution. I gave her some statistics and the text of Title IX. Armed with the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and some of the history books on her shelf (she\u2019s a big history buff), she set out to prove that women deserve equal pay in professional sports too.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Every now and then she\u2019d run into the room and ask questions like, \u201cWhat are government subsidies? What is a salary cap?\u201d In between questions, she\u2019d yell out from her room, \u201cWell how unfair is THIS? So guys make WHAT? Did you know that women only make\u2026\u201d Before I knew it, her brainstorming note page was full, she had mapped out her argument, and her first paragraph was done.\u00a0 I just sat there looking at my Administrative Law outline wishing that I could be as passionate about the Administrative Procedures Act as she was about this.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/socamom.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/inspire_pin.jpg\")
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