Squashing stereotypes

You’ll need

Pens or pencils
A4 paper
Sticky tack or sticky tape
Copies of the lists

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There’s also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

You might want to write out ‘true’, ‘false’ ‘girl’, ‘everyone’ and ‘boy’ on pieces of paper before starting the session.
To learn more about specific terms and definitions that people might use when they're talking about gender identity, check out Stonewall’s list of LGBTQ+ terms.

What’s gender?

Ask if anyone knows what gender means. If anyone puts their hand up, let them reply. Someone might say that it means to be a boy or a girl.
Tell everyone that gender is something adults came up with to sort people into groups. Many people think there are only two genders, girls and boys, but there are lots of genders. There are many ways to be a boy, a girl, both, or neither.
Explain that for this activity, we’ll be using the boy and girl genders.

Play the game

Tell everyone that they’re going to play a game.
Explain that you’re going to read out a characteristic and everyone must decide whether it’s for boys or girls.
Tell everyone that one side of the meeting place is going to be ‘boys’ and one side is going to be ‘girls’ and they’ve to move to the side of the meeting place that they think it is.
The middle of the meeting place will be for ‘both’, so if they think it’s for both boys and girls they can stand in the middle.
Read out the characteristics and give people time to move to the space of the room they want to be in for their answer. Once everyone has decided, move onto the next characteristic.
For now, avoid letting anyone explain why they chose that space and avoid saying if anyone is correct or incorrect.
Choose around fifteen things to read out from the list on this page, though you can do more or add your own.

What’s a gender stereotype?

Gather everyone back together.
Tell everyone that in that game all the things you read out were for everyone, both boys and girls. Say well done to anyone in the middle for the full game.
Explain that if someone thought something was just for boys or just for girls, they may have thought this because of a gender stereotype,
Ask if anyone knows what a gender stereotype is.
Explain that a gender stereotype is when someone decides something about someone just because they’re a boy or a girl or because they look like a boy or a girl.

Statements

Tell everyone that they’re going to play another game.
Explain that you’re going to read out a statement and this time everyone must decide whether it’s for true or false.
Tell everyone that one side of the meeting place is going to be ‘true’ and one side is going to be ‘false’ and they’ve to move to the side of the meeting place that they think it is.
Read out the statements below and give people time to move to the space of the room they want to be in for their answer. Once everyone has decided, let a few people explain why they chose that space and read out whether it’s true or false.
Choose around ten things to read out from the list of statements on this page, though you can do more or add your own.

How does a gender stereotype affect me?

Gather everyone back together.
Tell everyone that in that game all the things you read out were for false. They were all gender stereotypes. Say well done to anyone who stayed in the ‘false’ section for the full game
Gender stereotypes may make people have an idea of what someone will like, how they should look and what they should wear, what they should do at home, what their characteristics will be, what job they’ll want to or can do, what tasks they can do, what they’ll behave like, what they can’t do or how they will act based on whether they’re a boy or girl, though it might not actually be true. For example, people may think only boys can fix cars and girls can only play with dolls, but this simply isn’t true – anyone can do either of these things, no matter what their gender is.
Explain that gender stereotypes can sometimes stop people from doing things they want to, wearing or liking a certain thing, or stop them from doing something, such as taking on a certain job or wearing their hair a certain way.
Ask if anyone has ever had anything said to them, such as what they should wear or what they should like, just because of their gender or because what someone has thought their gender to be.
Ask if anyone can say what it felt like. Did it make them happy or sad?
Ask if anyone has seen any gender stereotypes recently. They may have seen an advert on YouTube that has lots of girls playing with a princess toy, they may have seen a teacher give out pink and blue certificates at school, they may have seen a boy section and girl section in clothes or toy shops, or they may have seen a train toy bought for their brother, even if he doesn’t like trains.

All about me

Ask everyone to take a sheet of paper.
Ask everyone to write a few things about themselves. Tell them that you’ll read out the subject and they should write down or draw their answer someone on the paper. They can do it privately in their own space, led down, sat down or in the circle.
While doing the activity, encourage them to think about how they identify today and to list any ways that they don’t fit or how they might ‘break’ stereotypes for girls, boys or children.
Read out the following categories:

- their favourite colour
- what they like to eat
- what they did last weekend
- their favourite sport
- their favourite hobbies
- their favourite school subject
- their favourite thing they’ve done in Scouts
- what they do at breaktime at school
- what they like to wear
- their favourite book
- their favourite film
- the music they like
- how they’d describe their hair
- their favourite animal
- their favourite toy
- the music they listen to
- three things they do around the house
- what they want to be when I’m older

Now, ask everyone to draw a shape next to each thing they’ve written down that might not fit or might ‘break’ a gender stereotype.
If anyone feels comfortable doing so, they should share either a few things they’ve written or drawn on their paper and how many (the total number) that broke a gender stereotype.

Tackling gender stereotypes

Ask everyone if it’s it OK when stereotypes don’t fit us? The answer is yes!
Ask how does it feel when stereotypes don’t fit?
Ask everyone why should we think about gender stereotypes, or stereotypes telling us about things for ‘boys’ and ‘girls’?
Remind everyone that stereotypes are harmful because they take a simple idea and try to say it works for everyone in a group. Gender stereotypes sometimes make people stop doing an activity they like and really want to do. They make it harder for people to be themselves and to like what they like.
Ask everyone to think how they can prevent any gender stereotypes that they might have themselves. People may say not judging what someone looks like, knowing everyone can like certain colours, letting girls join in football at school, knowing anyone can do any job, encouraging boys to talk about how they feel, or letting boys and girls play any games or with whatever toys they want to.
Ask everyone if there’s anything you could all do at Scouts to tackle gender stereotypes and write down everyone’s ideas.

Reflection

Tell everyone that it can be hard to go against gender stereotypes and gender roles. It might mean going against what other people might think, even if what they think isn’t true, or lead to some people. However, we should never judge someone, or what they might like, what they should look like or what they can do, based on their gender.

Did anyone know what gender stereotypes were before this session? Has it made people think about what gender stereotypes they may have themselves? Does anyone feel they break any gender stereotypes themselves?

Did anyone learn anything new about themselves? How about other people? How did it feel to share your identity with everyone? What ways can we help other people make their identities feel valued and welcome, without judgement?  

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

You’ll need

Before you begin

Planning and setting up this activity

What’s gender?

Play the game

What’s a gender stereotype?

Statements

How does a gender stereotype affect me?

All about me

Tackling gender stereotypes

Reflection

Safety

Make it accessible

This activity counts towards

Take it further

You’ll need

Before you begin

Planning and setting up this activity

What’s gender?

Play the game

What’s a gender stereotype?

Statements

How does a gender stereotype affect me?

All about me

Tackling gender stereotypes

Reflection

Safety

Make it accessible

This activity counts towards

Beavers My World Challenge Award

Cubs Our World Challenge Award

Scouts World Challenge Award

Take it further