Seek Ignite Change: Exploring Gender Stereotypes

Film and Panel Discussion

Thursday, March 13, 2013 : 6 pm - 8:30 pm Blauvelt Theatre

The annual Seek Ignite Change series at Friends Select highlights people and events that have sparked change, that inspire us, and that continue to influence our community in positive ways.

Our day-to-day lives are filled with stereotypes regarding aspects of our identity, including gender. We will look critically at the concept of gender and talk about how it affects adults and children. We will watch excerpts from two films that delve into this topic more deeply and will have the opportunity to hear from experts in this field. We will discuss the disconnect families may feel between their culture and values, and the larger society, as well as how to interrupt the cycle of negative stereotypes which affect us all.

Panelists

Melissa Weiler Gerber

FSS parent Melissa Weiler Gerber is executive director of the Family Planning Council in Philadelphia. The Family Planning Council advances sexual and reproductive health outcomes to promote health equity for individuals, families and communities. Previously, she served for more than a decade as the executive director of WOMEN’S WAY, a non-profit organization that raises money and public awareness to fight for and achieve women’s equality, safety, self-sufficiency and reproductive freedom through women-centered funding, advocacy and education. A lawyer by training, Weiler Gerber also served as the senior staff attorney at the Homeless Advocacy Project and began her career specializing in healthcare and insurance regulatory matters. She is vice chair of the Board of Governors of Hahnemann University Hospital, and serves on the board of directors of the Committee of Seventy and the Family Planning Councils of America.

Natan Gottesman, Ph.D.

Natan Gottesman joined Friends Select in 2007 in the newly created role of full-time psychologist. In this role, Gottesman serves as part of the guidance teams in the Lower, Middle and Upper Schools and is available to provide support and direction to all students. Gottesman works closely with families and outside professionals, as well as with teachers and administration on strategies for working with individual students as well as issues that may be of concern to a particular class, grade, division, or the entire community. Gottesman received his Bachelors degree in psychology from Hunter College, and his Masters and Doctoral Degrees in clinical psychology and child development from the University of Minnesota. Gottesman has worked in a variety of school settings, most recently serving for six years as the Director of Clinical Services at the Hill Top Preparatory School in Radnor. Gottesman also served for three years as the Executive Director of Work and Recovery Programs at the Jewish Employment and Vocational Service in Philadelphia.

Joseph Nelson Ph.D.

Joseph Nelson, Ph.D., is the associate research director of the Center for the Study of Boys' & Girls' Lives within the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. In this role, Nelson facilitates and provides support to a school-based research team conducting youth participatory action research projects. He also is a visiting faculty member at Bard College in the Master of Arts in Teaching program, and taught first-grade in a single-sex class of boys in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Films

Jean Kilbourne, Killing Us Softly

This highly anticipated update of Jean Kilbourne's influential and award-winning Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, takes a fresh look at American advertising and discovers that the more things have changed, the more they've stayed the same. Breaking down a staggering range of more than 160 print and television ads, Kilbourne uncovers a steady stream of sexist and misogynistic images and messages, laying bare a world of frighteningly thin women in positions of passivity, and a restrictive code of femininity that works to undermine girls and women in the real world. At once provocative and inspiring, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge yet another generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, gender violence, and contemporary politics.

Jackson Katz, Tough Guise 2

Jackson Katz is an educator, author, filmmaker and social theorist who has long been recognized as one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists. In this highly anticipated update of the influential and widely acclaimed Tough Guise, pioneering anti-violence educator and cultural theorist Jackson Katz argues that the ongoing epidemic of men's violence in America is rooted in our inability as a society to move beyond outmoded ideals of manhood. In a sweeping analysis that cuts across racial, ethnic, and class lines, Katz examines mass shootings, day-to-day gun violence, violence against women, bullying, gay-bashing, and American militarism against the backdrop of a culture that has normalized violent and regressive forms of masculinity in the face of challenges to traditional male power and authority. Along the way, the film provides a stunning look at the violent, sexist, and homophobic messages boys and young men routinely receive from virtually every corner of the culture, from television, movies, video games, and advertising to pornography, the sports culture, and US political culture. Tough Guise 2 stands to empower a new generation of young men--and women--to challenge the myth that being a real man means putting up a false front and engaging in violent and self-destructive behavior.