Activity Five: What's holding us back?

ACTIVITY FIVE: WHAT'S HOLDING US BACK?

What does WAGGGS want to know?

If girls are able to recognise the key reasons in their own community/country why there is not gender parity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) career opportunities.

What you need

• A long piece of string/yarn
• Sticky notes or small pieces of paper
• Tape
• Pens

What to do

1. Ask the girls to stand in one half of your meeting space. Put up the lists of jobs made in Activity 3 and Activity 4 at the opposite side of the space from the group. Tie or hold string across the space, so girls are prevented from reaching the list.
2. Following on from Activity 4, ask them in small groups to think about what might be stopping women from equally participating in some of these jobs/careers. Give five minutes for discussion and writing. The groups should write their ideas down on small pieces of paper or sticky notes which then are taped or stuck to the string across the room.
   • Suggestion - to help, encourage girls to think about:
     • Do girls have the same opportunities for education at school/higher education?
     • What is expected of girls by teachers, families, societies?
     • What jobs do media/television/film portray women as doing?
     • What do children's stories and toys show as women's jobs?
3. Once all the ideas are attached to the string, ask each group to feed back their ideas. Explain that we call these the "barriers" to the girls and women participating in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs.

Online option:

Either of the following methods:

1. Discussions in break-out room or plenary, depending on group size with the discussion points from "What to do" above. Leader/facilitator types the barriers shared by girls on an application (for example Word/Google Document, Power Point presentation, Excel/Google Sheeet) and share screen of these barriers. Leave some space below each barrier listed for the next activity.
2. Use applications like Padlet, Miro board, Google Jamboard, Google Sheet, Google Document or other interactive online engagement/collaborative applications.
   • If using Miro board/Google Jamboard: Ask participants to type the barriers they think girls and women faced in participating in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs as sticky-notes (one sticky note per barrier).
   • If using Padlet: Ask participants to type the barriers they think girls and women faced in participating in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs as a post (one post per barrier).  "Enable comment" for the posts that participants posted about the barriers for the next activity
   • If using Google Sheet, please share the editable link with them and ask them to list their barriers on each column so they can use the rows for the next activity.
   • If using Google Document, please share the editable link with them and ask them to list the barriers freely on the document or you may create tables for them, allowing space below or next to each idea for them to continue working in the next activity.

RECORDING THE RESPONSES:

Use a table like the format below to record the responses from the group.