Teaching Women's and Gender Studies - Classroom Activites for Women's History Month and Beyond

Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST)—An interdisciplinary study of the ways gender is constructed and how it affects our lived experiences and opportunities; a commitment to work toward greater justice and equity; and the intentional centering of stories, histories, and contributions of women and girls that are too often missing from curricula and media.

How might you and your class communities begin your study of Women’s and Gender Studies? Clingan and Fishman-Weaver recommend beginning with class norms (e.g., we practice courage, we assume positive intent, we recognize that all experiences are valid), personal story (as the 2023 theme teaches us, personal stories matter), and clear definitions (having common language to make complicated conversations more effective). 

This first handout offers an accessible definition of Women’s and Gender Studies for your class to consider. 

Recognizing that there are many perceptions about feminism, this next handout breaks down the authors’ working definition of feminism into its parts. Fishman-Weaver and Clingan assert that feminism is an affirmation of humanity that seeks freedom from oppression and commits to the full access of social, health, economic, and political rights and opportunities for all people. In this activity, student groups brainstorm what topics and concepts fall under each of these broad categories. 

Through this early brainstorming, students will see the wide array of important local and global issues that fall under this umbrella term. This leads purposefully into the next activities on exploring the United Nations Fifth Sustainable Development Goal. 

The United Nations SDG 5 Links to an external site. is “to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” This is a multifaceted goal with implications for healthcare, education, leadership, and representation. In the two activities linked below, students explore the United Nations SDG 5 and consider what priorities they want to focus on as they engage in making the world a more inclusive and equitable place for all genders. 

As students continue in their learning about gender, inclusivity, and equity, this next activity introduces important new concepts and vocabulary including:

• gender as a social construct 
• colonization and its impact on gender identities and expression

This chart helps students organize their thoughts and research on colonization and gender-expansive identities. It draws on several cultures including the two-spirit identities in Indigenous cultures in the United States, the kathoey of Thailand, and the hijra in India.

Jill Clingan says, “We connect with our world through story. We discover who we are as we navigate our own stories, and, equally as important, we connect to others through their stories. The exploration of Women’s and Gender Studies is an exploration of connection through story. We move beyond a linear definition of feminism and Women’s and Gender Studies and into a lateral connection to new ideas and a new understanding of people. These living, lateral connections inspire both us as educators and our students to connect to those stories and then work to launch those connections into action. As activists, we can work to make the world a more just, inclusive place where people can freely live their story outside of the artificial, restrictive construct of gender.”

Artivism is art + activism. Artivists use their creative work as a form of resistance to injustices such as racism, sexism, discrimination, and other social inequalities. Through their work, they both expose injustices and imagine new stories. The activities linked in this section encourage students to study artivists and to become artivists themselves. Three art pieces that the authors recommend in their book series are: 

• Emma Amos—Preparing for a Facelift Links to an external site.
• Links to an external site.Miriam Schapiro—Costume for Mother Earth Links to an external site.
• MaestraPeace Links to an external site.—San Francisco Women’s Mural (Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton, and Irene Perez)

“The Close Reading for Images—A Viewing Protocol” handout linked below gives students a framework for exploring and reading art images including theme, context, and story. Educators can use this protocol for approaching reading images across the content area. 

Both books include an additional proseminar for study. The middle school book includes a proseminar on intersectionality, and the high school book includes a proseminar on artivism. Across these units is a reverence for art as a tool for both resistance and sensemaking. You and your students are invited to explore one or both of the projects linked below. 

Kathryn Fishman-Weaver says, “The arts call us to pay attention and to tell more complete stories. In my own work in schools, the arts have been essential in helping me think more deeply and more effectively about teaching, learning, and pedagogy. The arts invite learning on both process and product and offer powerful strategies for cultivating resistance, representation, and radical hope.” 

Clingan and Fishman-Weaver contend that, “One of the most important lessons we can offer our students is an affirmation that their stories, their leadership, and their lives matter.” The first activity in this section invites students to research the stories of youth activists who are at the forefront of climate change. Next, students research how climate change is affecting their own community and create a plan for advancing intersectional climate justice on a local level. 

The second handout guides students to become catalysts for climate justice by creating a policy proposal outline that they can finalize and present to key stakeholders in their community. The policy proposal outline can also be used for other challenges that students identify, including those that spoke to them from their earlier research on the United Nations SDG 5. 

Fishman-Weaver and Clingan are both quick to share that the young people they work with are already enacting change in important ways. The books include examples of student leadership from their own work in schools as well as examples of youth advocates from around the world. The middle school book also includes an essay by a Mizzou Academy high school senior named Matheus Nucci Mascarenhas. The essay is a collaboration with his grandmother, Marilia Mascarenha. 

In a recent Mizzou Academy article, Matheus is quoted as lighting up when he talks about learning with his grandmother: “My grandmother’s voice is strong. This interview showed me the perspective of a progressive woman who intended to propel practical changes to further the cause of gender equality.”

Teaching a More Complete U.S History

As noted earlier in this resource, how the stories of history are told and who tells them have both historical and contemporary implications. The book series encourages students and teachers to study gender justice movements from history as well as the ways many of those movements are still impacting change today. 

The following handout is a timeline of key historical figures who helped expand gender representation in the United States government. You can assign individual students or groups to research a key figure from the timeline and prepare a Google Slides presentation that explains who the key figure is and how their work advanced gender justice, equality, and representation.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s story made a powerful and lasting impact on United States history. This activity provides background on seven of Justice Ginsburg’s landmark cases and then invites students to create a storybook page with text and illustrations describing these key issues.

Global Perspectives, Local Actions

Feminism is at the heart of global justice work. In the book series, Fishman-Weaver and Clingan connect Women’s and Gender Studies to justice work happening around the world. Leah Namugerwa is a youth climate activist from Uganda. Isra Hirsi co-founded US Youth Climate Strike. Rigoberta Menchú was the first Indigenous woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her social justice work. Autumn Peltier is an Anishinaabe Indigenous water rights activist from Canada. Rukumani (Ruku) Tripathi is a midwife making a profound difference in health outcomes for women in Nepal. Your students can also tap into the heartbeat of justice work. 

According to the United Nations World Food Program, “Of the 811 million people who are food insecure in the world right now, nearly 60% are women and girls.”$^1$ In the United States, 11.1% of households are food insecure, but that number jumps dramatically for single mothers and for women who live alone.$^2$ Using the first handout below as a guide, students can research local food insecurity and develop an action plan to reduce food insecurity in their local community.

$^1$https://www.wfpusa.org/women-are-hungrier-infographic/
$^2$https://frac.org/blog/impact-food-insecurity-womens-health

In this next activity, students organize a group research project on a mental or physical health topic to present as a research paper, visual presentation, or video. This project also asks students to consider the relationship between mental health, social justice, and feminism. Throughout this and all projects in these resources, the authors encourage humanizing research methods including working with communities, seeking wisdom from the communities we are studying, identifying strengths, and working collaboratively.