JOURNAL WRITING

GENDER ISSUES – two weeks (Dates: …………………)

 

I’d be very interested to read your thoughts on the following prompts (your replies should
be at least a page in length for each). Please place a checkmark next to the topic when 
you’ve recorded your ideas on it, and write down the date. ( Adapted from Writing as a Road
to Self-Discovery – Barry Lane. Writer’s Digest Books. 1993)

 

   --    Pretend you are a highly evolved human being living 1,000 years in the future. 
	You have returned to the twentieth century on a historical fact-finding mission. In a 
	letter to your futurist audience, explain the peculiar sex roles of men and women. 
	(Date: …………………………………..)

    

   --    Write down the names of three male or female TV characters. Now describe what
      stops them from being real.  (date: ………………………………………..)

    

   -     Think about the qualities you admire in men and women. List ten of them and then 
	explain why the qualities are important. (Date: ……………………………)

    

   --    Try writing in the mind of a woman who is having an argument with a man. 
	( Date:………..)

    

  --     Try writing in the mind of a man who is having an argument with a woman. 
	(Date: ………..)

    

         Create a situation in which a man or a woman from another era is placed in a 
	situation that is totally incompatible with his or her view of gender. For example: 
	a late twentieth-century feminist woman gets caught in a time warp and ends up a 
	character in a Gothic romance novel. Your character is supposed to be helplessly in 
	love with the abusive co-dependent, Count Richmond. What happens? 
	Date:………………………………)

    

   --     Imagine you have a son or a daughter. Write to either and tell him/her
      about sex roles (I’m not referring to pornography!) and how to deal
      with them. (Date: ……………………………………………..)

    

  --      Imagine this: you switch the heads of a Barbie doll and a Ken doll. Stick 
	Barbie’s head on Ken and Ken’s head on Barbie. Interview them on their new bodies. 
	Write down the interview. (Date:………………………………..)

    
  --      Write about what dolls’ bodies tell us about doll makers. (Date: ……………………….)

    

  --      Create your own gender related journal topic. (Date: ………………………………….)