Grade Nine Sunday School Unit on Gender

Session One: Students did and discussed a survey that appeared in USA weekend magazine April 18-20, 2003: He said, She said. The survey appears on line.

Session Two: What is wrong with this picture?
Look at Genesis 1:26-28
What does it mean that God creates both male and female in his own image?
Does God intend for one element or group of humanity to be subservient or to be slaves to the other?
What does it mean to be in God’s likeness?
Is this about rationality? Or is this about the capacity for relationship?
Look at Genesis 2:18-25: the second version of the creation of human beings.
What does God think is not right with the picture in verse 18?
Have students recognize the humor of the story by having them imagine the sorts of animals that God creates as helper (etzer) for Adam.
What does it mean to be a helper (help mate – Hebrew etzer)? Explain to students that ezer is used for woman only 2 x, but almost every other time that ezer is used in the Bible it refers to God as the ezer of human beings (14x). Can helper (etzer) mean someone who is subservient or a slave to the other’s will?
If blaming women for the fall becomes a topic of discussion, have the students look very carefully at the story and note where Adam is and how he bears equal responsibility. Look at the way each tries to “pass the buck’ in the story. Who does Adam blame? What would have happened if they had confessed their transgression?
Explain: Although Christian theology mostly speaks of the fall in terms of its main consequence of disrupting our fellowship with our Creator, the disruption of male/female roles and relationships was also a major consequence and needs to be taken very seriously.
Look at Gal 3:28. According to Paul, Jesus restores human beings relationship with God, but he also restores human relationships with each other. Point out that Paul is concerned with the freedom to relate to each other without cultural boundaries that keep us apart and prevent us from sharing our faith, encouraging or even rebuking each other.
Now look at the present picture and what is wrong with it. How do we do violence to each other based upon gender?

How do we typically talk about the other sex? What sorts of jokes do we tell? What sorts of derogatory things do we say? (See appended list of jokes if students do not supply some.)
Is this just being funny?
Do we really like it? Why do we sometimes pretend to like things that really offend us or hurt?
Break into gender groups and have students list the words that they never want to hear said about their group. Encourage students to refer to truly offensive words by using just the first letter of the word and then providing the appropriate number of lines after the word for the letter of the words or to use euphemisms.
A--- -- Bottom
T -- -- Breasts

Invite the opposite gender group to covenant with the other not to use such words.
Remind students what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount Matt 5:22 If you say “fool” you will be liable to the hell of fire” Jesus recognizes that words can be just as violent as a fist.
What sorts of other problematic behavior do we see between gender lines that we really do not like?
If you feel comfortable, use the language of sexual harassment.

Discuss how much violence is gender based?

Look at the way that we treat the other gender in the jokes we tell. We used a selection of Gender Jokes from on line sources. More Gender Jokes.


Session Three: How Media uses Gender Stereotypes to Manipulate You!

Background for Leaders: Michael Morgan (1982) conducted a longitudinal study to investigate if there was a meaningful link between television viewing and sex-role attitudes over a period of time. He collected data from a group of teenagers about the amount of television they watched, their acceptance of sex role stereotypes and their occupational aspirations over a period of two years. His results were shown to "support the view that television cultivates certain sex role views" (Gunter and McAleer, 1990, page 64), although he found that this mostly occurred amongst middle class girls. He found that heavy female viewers tended to adopt the traditional roles they had seen more than men.
Tannis McBeth Williams (1985) conducted a study in Canada to examine the impact of television on a community which had previously had no television reception. She tested the sex role attitudes of a number of children who lived in a community where they had no television reception shortly before television was introduced to the community, and again two years after. He found that children in a community where there already was television were more sex stereotyped than the children in the community who had no television reception, and also found that those who had been introduced to television were, two years later, significantly more stereotyped in their attitudes towards the sexes than they had been before. This type of evidence suggests that, "in the long term,
television has the potential to shape children's sex-role attitudes." (Gunter and McAleer, 1990, page 64).

Watch a clip from the Frontline episode: The Merchants of Cool
This clip is about how MTV interviews teenage boys to arrive at a stereotype that they then use to sell music, entertainment, clothes etc. The males are called Mooks.
You will have to stop and fast forward a bit through this because it contains images that our teens see but may be problematic to show in Sunday school. Ask the kids about Tom Green and Howard Stern.
Then discuss the image of the teenage female that MTV creates.
Discuss how gender is exploited in our society. What boxes do MTV and advertising try to put us into?
What sorts of things do we spend our money on to be cool?
What are the pressures to fit into the box?
What parts of this do we want to resist?
Look through magazines and point out problematic body images.
Are there any roles that are limited to one gender or the other?
Have youth create a list of things that they watch that they do not want to influence them. Discuss helpful films and books. Show a clip from Shrek.

Week Four: Trusting each other.

Focus upon the Book of Ruth. Respecting ourselves and each other. Perhaps show the veggie tale version of Ruth. Look at the vulnerability to the women in the story.
If Hollywood were to make a film version, what would happen to Ruth when she lay at Boaz feet?
Look at Boaz as a role model.
What are the things that we like to do in our gender groups?
What are the things that we like to do together?
What are the things that members of the other gender are “allowed” to do well that we would like to do?
Or
Focus on Gal 3:28 again and talk about how to be inclusive in one’s friendships:
Jump into some of the discussion of the sophomores about dating and its pit falls. How do we keep our friendship groups broad and inclusive?