We are a group of eight leaders from South Central Los Angeles set out to free the expectation of gender roles. We are student at Animo Pat Brown Charter High School, and we are here to challenge and expand our community's Ideas of how gender-based stereotypes define and limit all of us.
We created a series of events and conversations that focus on specific areas where we see gender stereotypes working against our community. Which are:
Domestic Labor-challenging the expected roles we often see in our homes of females doing all of the house work, and being limited to staying at home while males are allowed access to opportunities and leisure outside.
Physical and Emotional Health-challenging the restrictions of gender expectations where girls can not be angry and express their anger and have to be jubilant and maternal all the time, and boy can not be sad and can not cry or show emotions only this strong tough side.
Media-challenging our media environment and the constant messages that we can wake up to and resist if we apply the right lens.
By creating an ongoing conversation that engages our community through a variety of events, projects and united by a social media campaign, we intend to show our peers that this issue directly affects them, and that it is time to get rid of expected ideas about what men and women can't do.
Our actions are needed because without leaders breaking gender roles and stereotypes, people will not see how wrong the myths are and how everyone is negatively affected by gender roles. By breaking obstacles such as stereotypes, people will be enabled to reach their highest potential due to the gaining of freedom and of confidence. A domino effect is created because student by student, family by family, people will be educated and gender roles will become nonexistent. We live in a community where the sexist aspect of hispanic and latin american culture prevails. We see sexism in the classroom, at home, and we will strive to improve ourselves, our community, and the world. With your help, we can transform the world student by student.