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TIGER: Teaching Individuals Gender Equality and Respect
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Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

30/1/2017

 
Hidden away in the news this week was an article about researchers in America who thought that girls were starting to believe they were naturally less talented than boys from as young as six years old: (BBC News: Girls lose faith in their own talents by the age of six)

That article’s a bit drab, so here’s a quick summary:

When five-year-olds were asked to point to a picture of a really, really smart person, boys chose a picture of a boy, and girls chose a picture of a girl. But when they asked six-year-olds, boys still chose a boy, but girls chose a boy too. That suggests that between five and six, girls had started to think that boys were more likely to be smart than girls. Next the researchers played a game with six- and seven-year-olds. They told some of the kids it was a game for really smart people, and some that it was for really hard workers. The boys and the girls both enjoyed the game the same amount when they thought it was for hard workers, but even though it was exactly the same game, the girls who were told it was for smart kids didn’t enjoy it as much as the boys. The researchers think that’s because the girls had decided it wasn’t for them, because they believed they couldn’t be as smart as boys.

Why is that important? Well, first of all, we should probably mention that being a boy or a girl has nothing to do with how smart you are! There are women doing all sorts of amazing, challenging, super-scientific jobs. There’s female rocket scientists, female brain surgeons - The world’s first computer programmer was a woman, and she did it before they’d even made a computer to run her programs!
But despite all this evidence, the numbers show that only a tiny amount of women are going for these jobs, and researchers think that it’s these assumptions they make as kids that are stopping them. Because they think boys are more likely to be really smart, they think of smart jobs as being for boys, and give up on their hopes of being astronauts, doctors, or robotic time-travelling superheroes with laser eyes (OK, maybe not that one).

Think about something you'd love to do with your life when you're older. Is it something you think you could do? If you don't think so, here's a question for you: Think about the reasons why you don't think you could do the thing you want to do. Are they all facts? Can you prove them? Even if you've been told them lots of times, has anyone ever shown you proof? Are you sure they were right? How can you be sure? It would be terribly sad if someone gave up on what they wanted to do with their future because they thought they couldn't do it, when really, they could have all along. But unfortunately that's what's happening! And what's worse, every time it happens, it makes it more likely to happen in future. That's because whenever people give up on a dream because they think people like them can't do it, it means in future, there's less people like them doing it. And that means that when the next lot of people with that dream go looking, they see even less evidence they can do it. Before you can blink, everybody seems to know that girls can't be scientists (for example), but no one actually has any proof of this. They can’t prove it, because it all just started with a stereotype that wasn't really true!

That dream of being a time-travelling robot superhero with laser eyes might have some trouble with the laws of physics, but often the only thing in the way of your future hopes is a faulty stereotype. If the only thing holding you back is who you are, remember that expectations, unlike the laws of physics, can be overcome - but not if you give up.

What are your hopes and dreams? Do you think you can achieve them? What do you think holds you back? Are you secretly a time-travelling robot superhero? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter!

In Other News

23/1/2017

 
Even at the best of times, the world can be a pretty confusing and distressing place. And when you’re struggling with something, it particularly sucks to look for a little breathing space in the wider world only to see what looks like doom and gloom on the horizon in every direction. From our work at TIGER - and our own experiences - we know a huge number of young people face pressures, expectations, bullying and other stresses around their gender and sexuality. If you’ve been facing this and asked for help, you might have been told that you're not alone, or that it gets better. And that's true! But we understand that sometimes just hearing that isn’t enough, because when you look for the evidence, you seem to find even more fear and unhappiness.

The news often seems terrifying and it's OK to be worried that things are really getting worse. It can seem like people are always talking about the latest crisis, so when they tell you things will be OK, it can be hard to believe they mean it. But here's what you've got to remember - Whatever's in the news, or trending on Facebook, or the #hashtag of the day on Twitter, it doesn't tell you the whole story. You might be seeing and hearing lots of worrying stuff, but it doesn’t mean that good stuff isn’t happening - It just means the bad stuff is getting all the attention.

Bad stuff gets more chatter than good stuff, that’s an actual fact. Humans are odd creatures and they seem to prefer sharing bad news more than good (unless it’s cat videos). There’s lots of reasons for that, and a quick Google for ‘why does bad news get more attention than good news’ will turn up plenty of theories about why it happens. The important thing to remember is that when all you’re hearing is worrying and scary, it’s because people just talk about that more. The good things are out there, the evidence that things will get better, or that you aren’t alone - They just might not be so obvious.

Things often look worse than they are - But that doesn’t mean you’re over reacting if you’re scared or struggling. If you’re drowning and looking for a life raft, the atmosphere in the news and in people’s conversations recently can look more like a storm cloud, but the reality isn’t all storms. What we want you to know is that if something’s wrong, there are people out there who are fighting your corner, who understand your feelings, who don’t think you should have to feel that way - They just aren’t in the spotlight. We really hope that reading this has reassured you that it’s not all bad news out there. They might not be making the headlines, but there’s plenty of people around who don’t agree with sexism, transphobia, homophobia, or any other kind of discrimination or injustice, and they want to make things better for you, in the future and right now.

Now here’s a video of a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPzNl6NKAG0

(If you’re struggling and need a hand, our Support page has links to lots of great people who can help you out.)

New Year, New Blog!

15/1/2017

 
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Hello! Welcome to our new blog! As we start the new year, one of our resolutions is to broaden our discussions with all of you. We’ll have lots to say, but more than that, we want to hear what you have to say too. Here on the blog we’ll raise thoughts and talking points inspired by current events, recent workshops, and by our feedback from you. You don’t need to have attended our workshops to join the conversation - you don’t even need to be on this side of the planet! Conversations on gender, identity and equality are relevant worldwide so we hope this blog will be of interest to everyone. If you have anything to say, we encourage you to join the conversation - It can be a reply to something we’ve written, a question, a thought you want to share, or just a good joke. Tweet to us or visit us on Facebook at @TIGERBRISTOL. If you prefer, you can also email us at tigerbristol@riseup.net.


There’ll be a new blog post here about once a week, and we’ll keep you updated on Twitter and Facebook. You can expect lots of discussion points and nods to recent goings on you might have missed, as well as the occasional update on our goings-on. We’ve also got other exciting plans in the works for the coming year, which we’re looking forward to sharing in the coming months. That’s what we’re looking forward to, but to kick things off, here’s a look back at who we are and what we did in 2016.

Delivering workshops has always been the foundation of our activities, engaging young people face-to-face in pressing issues they might not have considered before (and sometimes learning a thing or two from people who’ve already thought about it a lot!). 2016 Kept us busy and well-travelled on that front, looping in and around Bristol to chat with:

  • Chipping Sodbury School
  • Abbeywood Community School
  • Balcarras School
  • Orchard School
  • John Cabot Academy
  • Redland Green School
  • Off the Record
  • The National Citizen Service
  • Gender Jelly Youth Group
  • UWE
  • Freedom Youth
  • Redland Green Again!
  • Bristol Free School

Phew. If you’re wondering what that looks like, it’s something like this:

...In fact we went even further than that, but it wouldn’t fit on the map!

We had a lot to talk about, with discussions ranging from porn and consent, to sexism and stereotypes, through lad culture and hyper-masculinity and femininity, and on to sexism in the movies.

Talking of movies, we declared March was awards season as we kicked off the first TIGER Film Awards, the calendar event of the cinema year! You can see our top picks for great, progressive performers and their work on our news page. Look out for more on this year’s awards in a little while.

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Not content with our epic Workshop quest, we popped up at even more spots around the city to discuss our work, share ideas, and make some new friends. In February we celebrated the LGBT History festival, meeting lots of great people and hearing interesting talks from Stewart Milk
and Travis Alabanza. In summer we struck up a great new Partnership with Off the Record, observing and working with groups they support, including Boys to Men, Zazi, and Gender Jelly. We were very proud to attend June’s Envision Community Apprentice Awards where one of our mentoring workshop attendees won the award for Resilience! At the end of summer we dropped into the fab Ideal Network and spoke about our work to teachers from City Academy and Cotham school. Finally, we visited Bristol’s Neighbourhood Partnerships which led to the big news that Bishopston, Cotham & Redland and Ashley, Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Partnerships would be funding us to go even further with our workshops in the coming months! We’re extremely grateful to them; they’re stars!

That was our year, and we’re looking forward to an even bigger adventure in 2017. The Blog is just the start, and we’re hoping 2017 will be the year we reach more of you than ever before. We’re excited to hear from you. What do you think the big issues of 2016 were? What’s going to be important in the year to come? What are your hopes and expectations? Did you meet us on our travels last year? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter!

We’ll be back next week - and every week! - until then, we hope you’re having a great new year and we’ll see you soon!

    Hello!

    At TIGER we're always excited to hear from you, whether you've been to one of our workshops, you've got one coming up, or even if you've just found us online!

    Here in the blog we'll post thoughts and conversations that go beyond our workshops. We hope they'll interest you whether you've met us before or never heard of us, and we encourage you to get in touch and share your own thoughts!

    You can tweet to us and find us on Facebook at @TIGERBRISTOL, or email us at tigerbristol@riseup.net

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