Summative Statement

Throughout this research project, I have been investigating gender roles and gender identity from the perspective of an intersectional feminist. With the written aspect of the project, I focused on how feminism and the media affect gender roles and gender identity, so with the practical work, I really wanted to focus on how children specifically can be educated on such issues.

Although the proposal for the practical work changed a lot throughout the duration of the project, the aim and target audience always remained the same. This is because I think in order to tackle the issue of gender learning and gender equality; children need to be educated on the fact that gender is not as straight forward as just male and female. As gender is typically associated with colour, especially at a younger age, I thought producing a colouring book would be the best way to demonstrate that everybody should have a choice in how they define their own gender. Having the freedom to select their own colours for the activities in the book means that each child would have a different representation of what they define as masculine and feminine. As gender is also linked to jobs and social roles, the colouring book features illustrations of men, women or androgynous characters in positions one would not usually expect due to gender socialization - for example, a female mechanic.

What I have learnt from my exploration in this project is that combating gender equality is not just an issue for women. Although women have the right to be empowered, perhaps we should be focusing more on empowering individuals for having the courage to display their own definitions of attributes such as femininity, regardless of gender identity.