Course: Introduction to Women’s Studies

Unit: The Gendered World of Work

Lesson Description:
"The reading for the day was Chapter 8 "Separate and Unequal: the Gendered World of Work" from Kimmel’s The Gendered Society.

In pairs, the students discussed ways in which women are discriminated against in the workforce.

In order to explain how gender bias actually works in the workplace, I asked students to select one of the bias patterns, and then decided together whether we would watch the video that exemplified severe or mild bias.

After watching the video, I asked the students to identify the ways in which gender bias operates in those conversations.

The students were able to identify not only gender-based bias against women, but racial and ethnic bias as well. For example, when discussing the videos that illustrate "The Double Bind," both the Mild Bias and Severe Bias scenarios include biased references to women of color (African American and Asian American women).

I then asked the students to imagine a similar conversation without any bias at all and, after discussing several possibilities, we watched the No Bias scenario."