Foster Care Training

We begin treating children differently based on their sex assigned at birth often from the moment we are aware of their anatomy. We see an ultrasound and imagine futures based on stories we tell about boys and girls. We often have good intentions, but the impacts of this everyday sexism that starts in childhood play out continuously throughout a lifetime. For example, boys are often encouraged to go to school and prepare for work to be “providers,” while girls tend to carry more household responsibilities that keep them from school, increasing the odds of child marriage and pregnancy. We raise boys to be “tough” while we raise girls to be “polite,” which also plays out over time: while both boys and girls are negatively impacted by gender-based violence, an estimated 1 in 3 women globally have experienced physical and sexual violence in their lifetime. Creating a more equitable world requires all of us to examine the ways we have been taught to understand and perpetuate sex and sexism. In this day-long workshop, participants will investigate their own socialization in a system of inequity based on sex and gender. They will also explore the cycle of oppression with a focus on sexism. Through lecture, group process, experiential activity, and reflection, attendees will learn language and the historical construction and function of sexism, and will consider how sexism fits into the larger system of oppression. Participants will have a safe space to explore their early learnings and notice where they have learned to accept and collude with systems of sexism in order to imagine possibilities for gender and our communities outside of a sexist model.