Single sex workshops

Home: Workers: Useful Articles: About RPC

Issues for young men and women

The work we undertake with young men and women in our sessions shares several common issues and tensions. There is a need to disseminate accurate and valid knowledge, and also a need to hear, and break down, more extremist viewpoints. Issues such as how far to let language go, the safety of participants once the sessions end, and the possibility of students "acting out" with their new-found knowledge create some degree of dilemma. Other gender-specific issues were considered when deciding to undertake single-sex workshop sessions.

Survivors of violence

When working with young women, it is difficult to know if they have been affected by violence. Given generally consistent and alarming statistics regarding violence directed towards women, it is fair to assume that someone in the class is a survivor of violence, or a witness to violence, or sexual abuse. Thus young women might have issues involving safety when expressing themselves in mixed groups (Gulbin, 1996).

Age-related issues

Developmentally, boys in schools generally lag behind girls, especially in the lower year levels. As an example, boys in year 7 will be at a lower level of maturity than girls in the same year. Thus, it might be difficult in a mixed sex group to discuss issues regarding violence, abuse, sexual assault and sexuality in general, when there are two different levels of understanding. Young men and women need to understand the information on offer, so it is important to speak at a level that will be understood by the whole group, while also maintaining a level of safety. This can be achieved by the encouragement of "third-person speak", such as "I know someone who... ".

This gives a level of safety to everyone while allowing them to ask and seek information relevant to themselves.

Tolerance issues

A percentage of young men might not understand the pain and damage which sexual, physical and emotional violence cause young women and other men. It is an unfortunate truth that in mixed sex workshops where these issues arise, some young men might act inappropriately through comment, laughter or misdirected blame: "You probably wanted it", "It's the only way you'd get it" and so on.

Learning styles

Young women are often more open to embracing an interpersonal workshop environment. Young men often need to be "coaxed" into this learning environment, through the use of role-play and acting. Perhaps this is best explained as a need to be "not learning", but rather having fun. This can be achieved through the young men having a sense of play. Information might flow from the participants to the peer educators, and thus be disseminated back to the whole group (Box 1).

Safety

Adolescence is generally a time of difficulty for youth in general, and this must be taken into account in any workshop being run. Young mates might "censor" themselves when talking in mixed groups about painful or difficult issues. In single sex groups, talk is far more honest, less distortion of words is experienced, and young men might not feel the need to "impress" while young women might feel more comfortable talking about violence without the threat of further victimisation and trivialising of their experiences. Revelations might be more brutally frank in a single sex environment that also provides an adequately safe environment for personal discussion.

Acting out and shutting down

Our work with young men shows that they are far more open to revealing sensitive issues within a single-sex workshop, while young women in groups might shut down when discussion of sensitive, topics get too close to their personal experience. An open discussion with much input from three or four young women within a group might end with the participants feeling vulnerable. Peer educators are well trained in recognising this development, and will actively work with the group to reconnect participants, thus ensuring that they gain skills directly related to ensuring their safety.

Language

Language in the boys' workshops reflects the way young men would usually talk in the school ground. The peer educator's aim is to "tell it like it is". To do this, it was decided that there, needed to be no restriction on language. By allowing young men to use raw language, the peer educators found that issues were approached in a straightforward manner, and boys felt that they were not being censored. This was important as it was also thought that if the boys felt censored, we would not be working with them on an equal level. In a mixed sex workshop, this type of approach would be unacceptable, and offensive.

Sponsor

SECASA

Disclaimer Copyright Updated: 9 Oct 2009