Peer Review

Initial Proposal:

Overarching theme
Feminism

Specific Subject
Gender identity awareness

Research Question
How has Western feminism changed in the last 150years?

Products
An information book/activity pack for children 7-11

Proposed Outcomes
In addition to the book, I am proposing how the content can be applied to an interactive app and workshops in primary schools

Media Processes
Primarily digital processes, e.g. creating the book pages in Illustrator, arranging in InDesign. Sketchbook will be used for initial ideas and creating textures.

Question 1
Based on my proposal, is there anything I haven't considered about the outcomes?

Question 2
Do you think this is an appropriate response to the topic?

Question 3
Do you have any suggestions for activities or topics I haven't thought of?

Feedback

Comment on the initial relationship between the Theme and the proposed Subject?
Strengths
- Strong relationship between the two at this stage
- Clear link between the two
Suggestions
- Document character development more on blog

Comment on the appropriateness, scope and ambition of the proposed outcomes in relation to the subject.
Strengths
- You've got a lot of ambition
- Outcome strongly addresses the question/product idea
Suggestions
- Maybe include more activities. 7 to 11 year olds learn through doing quite often, more than reading. See if you can show them rather than tell them. You are on the right track.
- Rather than having all the activities in the back, have some mixed throughout the book, relating to the subject/topic on that page.

Comment on the visual investigation and development of ideas in response to theme and subject.
Strength
- You've made a clear template for your content. Remember their age too so will have to be simplified.
- Really food. I think you have a really clear idea of what you're going to make and how you're going to do it.
Suggestions
- Draw a bit more to visually explore the subject
- Don't skip ahead to the product too fast
- Look at more illustration on feminism and out it on blog to show informed on what has come before you & how you've learnt from that.
- Draw more! You'll also have to think about your choice of colour

Comment on the choice of media/format/series etc. in relation to the outcomes.
Strengths
- Digital will work well in allowing you to arrange or adapt to different outcomes
- Really good book idea/layout. Great way of thinking.
Suggestions
- Experiment a little more with what you're going to include.
- For the paper dolls, you'll have to test which paper will work best as they tend to need quite thick stock.

General Comments:
- Draw more and put on blog - show how you're responding as you are being informed. An activity could be flash cards/pair up cards (research it more).
- Could talk about gender roles in jobs e.g. men being ballet dancers/women being plumbers. Equal rights could be done on paper dolls. Teach kids not to restrict themselves from doing what they want.

My thoughts
Overall, this feedback session was really useful. It was good to see where everybody else was with their work and I realise that I'm at a point where I need to take a bit of a step back and not focus on the outcome too much.

• I have identified what I would like to make, but by the end of the project I want it to have developed much more
• DRAW MORE! I've spent way too much time reading and writing so far. 
• Stop worrying about making final outcome, draw in response to gender roles/identity. 
• SKETCHBOOK PLAY BEFORE FINAL IDEA

Peer Review Prep'

I've made a few boards to help explain my practical proposal in tomorrows peer review. I've kept it pretty simple, partly because I'm at a point where I can't talk about it much more - I need to get on and start making it, and partly because they don't need to hear every bit of information I have gathered on the topic.
In the meantime, I am going to make a really early mock up of the book, so I can show them the content I am proposing, which will hopefully help structure the feedback. I'm mostly concerned about my (lack of) ideas for the activities, so I'll see if anybody has any suggestions.

Gender Conditioning

I found this image and I'll admit that my initial response was that the hairy legs must belong to a man. Almost straight away however, I thought to myself, "why did I assume that?" and I realised it was because of gender conditioning. This is another topic I want to illustrate in my book. 

I came across this article about how we tend to raise children to fit into one of the two gender roles. This is why people who don't feel like they fit into either of the binaries, find it so hard to fit into society. 

As children grow up, we tend to buy them toys or encourage them to participate in activities based on their gender - we make assumptions that they'll like them because they're a boy/girl. Stories, toys, clothes and games etc, all subtly reinforce gender binaries. How often do you see pink clothes in the 'boys' section? Children pick up on these cues and they grow up thinking that because there were no pink clothes in the 'boys' section, pink must just be for girls. 

Gender Pronouns

[Found on EverydayFeminism]

"Binary trans people, in general, don’t feel terribly different about their gender than a cisgender person would about theirs, particularly those who are perceived (via bodily sex and expression)to be congruent with their gender.

People who are perceived this way experience society through the same lens as a cisgender person, which is one of the reasons that it is appropriate to allow binary trans people to exist in spaces designed for their gender."

"Pronouns for genderqueer folks, like the rest of my descriptions about them, are difficult to describe concisely due to the inherent diversity in the demographic, but some generally preferred pronoun sets include gender neutral pronouns, such as “they/them/theirs” or “xe/hir/hirs,” rolling pronouns (which involves changing the persons pronoun each time that one comes up in a sentence – for example, “She went to the store, and on the way there he ran into an old friend who asked hir how they were doing”), or not having a preference toward any pronoun in particular.

Like with every person, though, even if they appear cisgender, it is always in best taste to ask what pronoun the person uses instead of assuming."

Once again I'm leaning more towards creating an information booklet for children based on gender. I still want it to be interactive, but I obviously need to make sure I get the correct information on the importance of pronouns in gender identity. As a cisgender female, I've never really given pronouns a second thought, but obviously when a person identifies as transgender, you refer to them with a different pronoun. There are more gender identities than cis or trans however, but we only have two sets of gender specific pronouns! (he/she). I had never considered that some people would using rolling pronouns (where you switch between he, she, they) and I think it's quite an important bit of info for my publication.

The Genderbread Person

[Found here]

"Let’s take “Gender Identity” for our example. I identify as a man, but I identify with a lot of what it means to be a woman. I’m sensitive, kind, familial, and I really like dark chocolate (kidding — stuff’s disgusting). Possessing this “woman-ness” doesn’t make me any less of a man. But it’s a large part of my gender identity, and those traits affect my life and influence my decisions as much and more than many of my “man-ness” "

So I came across this when looking for current illustrations based around gender identity. I've come to understand gender as more of a spectrum, rather than a binary. This illustration has definitely helped me understand it a little further, but I think it's still quite hard to understand. I'd like to create my own version of this, simplified and aimed towards children aged 7 - 11 to go in the publication I'm proposing.

The Design Council

After my tutorial it was suggested that I take a look at The Design Council because it has loads of free resources/case studies such as 'How to run a design a primary school design workshop'. I've been thinking about how this project could branch out to school programs, since that is a place where gender stereotypes/norms seem to be heavily enforced (for example, segregated P.E sessions)

Here is an example of one of the programs I am altering to fit this context:

A Ten Step Guide To Running A Design Workshop in Primary Schools: 
This workshop could be based around gender awareness and gets the children to make posters or leaflets, which could be stuck around the school and in the local community, to encourage people not to enforce gender stereotypes.

1. Take your class out on a trip to identify opportunities for design improvements.                           - Introduce the topic: explain what gender is and how some people find it hard to identify with just one side of the 'gender norms'. Give examples (boys like football, girls like pink etc). Ask the class if they agree with this. For this specific issue, it might be useful to have a discussion about where they think gender is enforced and how they feel about it. 
2. If you can't get the class out of school, get pupils to look for problems elsewhere.                        - Get the pupils thinking about where these posters could go and what they are trying to achieve. Is there anywhere in school where gender is enforced? (e.g toilets - do they think this is necessary?).
3. Think about what it's like to be someone else.                                                                                 - Get the pupils to think about what it might be like to feel uncomfortable with their gender and what they think they could do to make those people feel better. How do they feel when they are told that they can't do something because they're a boy/girl - what are those things?
4. Get the students to share the problems they identified with the class.                                             - A simple group discussion might help them understand more about the topic and if they can contribute an experience of their own of a time when they were told they couldn't or shouldn't do something, others might be able to relate. Ask them to make a list of five examples as a group.
5. Get the class to vote for which problem they want to use to address.                                             - In this context, it might be down to the individual to draw a poster based on one of the examples discussed with the class or a personal experience. 
6. Brainstorm initial ideas for the problem.                                                                                         - Do the pupils think it would be better to make a poster or a leaflet? How big do they think it should be and what kind of colours should they use?
7. Vote again.                                                                                                                                       - Or rather than voting (so that everybody can tackle the issue their own way) discuss on their tables what each of them have decided to do.
8. Sketch out a poster or leaflet design. What will it say? What will the picture be?                          - At this stage the students should have a rough idea of what their posters are going to look like (sketch). In small groups/each table, should discuss how to make their poster look more eye catching.
9. Time for production.                                                                                                                         - Let the students get creative with their poster designs, draw illustrations and eye-catching titles showing their opinion on gender stereotyping. 
10. Hang the posters around the school.                                                                                                - After the posters are up, ask the pupils what they want to achieve with these posters? Make five aims to review at a later date. 

I really like the idea of having some sort of workshop for children to make them aware of this issue. Not only is it a current topic in the media because of people such as Caitlyn Jenner, but we're at a time in society where people aren't so afraid of challenging social norms/constructs. Hopefully by getting children to be more aware of gender enforcing/stereotyping, they'll feel more comfortable being themselves and not feeling like they have to conform so much as they get older. 

Tutorial Feedback & Action Plan

In this tutorial I discussed my progress with the essay and where I am with the practical aspect of the project. So far I'm on track, but the discussion was really useful because it helped me hash out exactly what I wanted to achieve:

• Aimed towards 7-11 year olds
• Telling them that they do not need to conform to gender stereotypes (as they are at the age when they start to make decisions based on their gender)

How do you encourage this? Could it be a part of the curriculum in schools? A little book/publication? An app?

Action Plan:

1. Take a look at The Design Council
2. Produce boards explaining intentions (images not words, where possible!)