“What’s Gender Got to Do With It 2“

Linking, Engagement, Advocacy and Development—LEAD scholar Angel Dimitrievski  implemented the  high school student program on gender representation in the media "What's Gender Got to Do With It?", funded by the USAID Citizen Participation Project. The first workshop set up the group that will participate in this program. 18 high school students from 7 high schools in the city of Skopje set the boundaries and discussed the difference between terms sex and gender. The workshop elaborated through a series of exercises, pair discussions, and critically commented topics on gendered professions, the division of home work between men and women, and students also stated their thoughts on what it means to be "Real man" and "Real woman" and what negative names they would get if they didn't fit that picture. This program is implemented in two phases: the educational phase and the development of a high school journal. In the first phase, participants educated, discussed, re-thinked and challenged opinions on gender roles, gender discrimination, the impact of toxic masculinity, discrimination against LGBT + high school students, and the relationship of gender and sexuality to the media, politics, education, politics. Within the program, the students produced a pilot version of a newspaper that was the final product after the educational phase of the program. At the coordination meetings for creating the newspaper, the high school teams presented the progress they have made so far and what future steps they are taking in developing their media products. The teams developed their own media products such as interviews, news, commercials, comics, media campaigns, fashion tips and movie and song recommendations. The newspaper “Rodnakvost“ was printed and promoted in 4 high schools in Skopje where the teams that created the newspaper visited their peers. At the visits not only the newspaper was delivered, but also each team opened the discussions on gender and sexuality further at the schools through several interactive exercises for discussion. Association for Educational Development – Ekvalis was partner in implementing this project.   [gallery columns="4" ids="https://ekvalis.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/56922929_346178149348564_6313676369788141568_o.jpg|,https://ekvalis.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/57277778_348797649086614_5658166091566809088_o.jpg|,https://ekvalis.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/57419032_348797815753264_542948660091027456_o.jpg|,https://ekvalis.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/62082131_370331416933237_6493990719055724544_o.jpg|"]