Ethos Education

Barbie: What does the Bible show us about gender equality?

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Learning Objectives:

  • Understanding how gender stereotyping influences society and causes division between male and female.
  • Understanding how patriarchal and matriarchal societies differ.
  • Consideration of how the Old Testament understands power and authority in the context of a psalm.
  • Exploration of the radical nature of a Christian worldview in a patriarchal society.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Learn about male and female stereotypes through a quiz and discussion.
  • Examine stereotypes of masculinity and femininity by analysing two clips from the Barbie movie.
  • Explore a psalm in order to establish how power is understood in biblical context through completing a worksheet.
  • Analyse a number of Bible passages and establish what they teach about equality and power.
  • Synthesise learning by writing a psalm.

Supporting Values Education:

  • The values of mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith means learning to listen to the perspectives and viewpoints of those with different opinions. The value of individual liberty means that an individual has the right not to be treated as a stereotype but viewed as unique.

STARTER:

Give students a copy of the This or That handout. Working alone, the class must decide which of two options they prefer. You could use Mentimeter or similar to compare results on the board, or run the quiz as a ‘walkabout’ activity.

The handout reads:

Circle your choice from the following list, for each line choose just one option:

Option one Option two
Pepsi Coke
Pizza Sushi
Cupcakes Steak bakes
Football Netball
Street dance Ballet
Drums Violin
Movies Gaming
Apple Orange
Too hot Too cold
Chocolate Crisps
Instagram TikTok
Barbie Ken

Which choices did you find most difficult? Why?

Discuss the questions at the end of the handout. Which questions were hard to answer, and why? Were there any answers where students might have preferred to provide their own answer (e.g. to choose Fanta over Coke or Pepsi)? Were there any answers that seemed to fit particular groups of people? Why is that?

Draw out the fact that, like it or not, there will be some activities and items on the list that might be viewed as masculine and some as feminine. What does the class think of the idea that activities divide by gender? Make sure that the discussion doesn’t become too heated, or stray into definitions of sex and gender – the focus should be on the stereotyping rather than gender debate.

Explain that attitudes to masculinity and femininity have changed over the years.

If you have time, you could show the ‘Yorkie’ advert from 2002 as an example of a piece of advertising that played with the idea that some things (in this case a bar of chocolate!) were more suitable for men than women. If you don’t have time, explain that in the fairly recent past it was acceptable to use stereotypes in advertising and media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGvjGJ9II9Q

Does the class think that this advert would be made nowadays? Do they think that the advert sold chocolate to women and men? What do they think about the idea that women might buy the chocolate as an act of defiance against the advert?

When activities or objects are categorised as being masculine or feminine, we can describe this as stereotyping. Stereotyping means having a fixed and often overly simplistic idea of what a group of people are like. So, for example, to say that all French people wear berets and eat croissants is stereotyping. Similarly, to say that all girls like pink and all boys play football is stereotyping. Some girls like pink, some don’t. Some boys like playing football, some don’t. Most French people do not wear berets.

Ask the class to suggest examples of gender stereotyping that they have observed. Why do students think that human beings create stereotypes?

Explain that during today’s lesson, students will have to think about what happens when stereotypes become unhelpful, causing division and anxiety. They will also examine what the Bible teaches about gender equality.

MAIN ACTIVITIES:

Tell students that they are going to watch two clips from the Barbie movie. In the first clip, ask them to spot as many examples as they can of stereotyping.

Introduce the clip from Barbie (Warner Bros, 2023, certificate 12). Click here to buy the DVD online.

Clip 1

  • Start time: 00.28.43
  • End time: 00.32.53
  • Clip length: 4 minutes 10 seconds

Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are trying to find the school where they believe Barbie’s owner will be. Barbie decides to stop and clear her mind. Bored, Ken asks for permission to go for a walk. Barbie tells him not to go far, but as he walks the streets of Malibu, Ken notices that people treat him differently here because he is a man. Soon he finds himself noticing men everywhere doing ‘manly’ things like driving large cars, riding horses, excluding women from conversation, playing sports and drinking beer. He also realises that all the images of powerful people around him are male. As the musical montage ends, we hear him say ‘Yes!’

Meanwhile, Barbie is trying to conjure up a vision of her little girl. We see a montage of a child and her mother. At first they are close and the child plays with her Barbie doll, but as the sequence goes on and she grows older we see her consign her doll to a box of old toys for the charity shop. When Barbie opens her eyes she finds she is crying. She then looks around the park where she is sitting and observes boys and girls, men and women fighting with each other. She sees two men laughing, and another sitting alone, crying. She then turns to the old lady sitting next to her and tells her that she is beautiful. The lady replies that she knows it, and they laugh.

Ken comes running up to her and announces that men rule the world. At the same time as she says that the kid is at the school. She doesn’t hear him, but he hears her, so they set off to the school.

Discuss the clip with the class. What examples of stereotyping did they spot? ‘Masculine’ examples – horse riding, large cars, sports, drinking beer, belittling women. ‘Feminine’ examples – girls playing with dolls, women being more caring towards others.

Ask students what they think of Ken’s response to what he experiences. Why do they think the masculine stereotypes appeal to him? How would Barbie respond to Ken’s new experience of society?

At the end of the clip, when Ken is telling Barbie what he has learned, he says ‘Men rule the world!’. This is an alien concept to Ken who has always existed in Barbieland, where his only purpose is to be an accessory to Barbie’s life, and where the Barbies are in charge. In the real world, Ken has encountered the idea that men are more privileged than women and have more power. This is sometimes referred to as a patriarchal society, one where men have more power than women.

Distribute the worksheet Who’s In Charge? and explain that when the Bible was written, society was highly patriarchal. The worksheet contains a psalm (poem), and the task is to discover what it says about human beings and power.

(Teacher information: The translation that we are using today is the New Living Translation which translates the Hebrew term ‘Enowsh’ to human beings, older Bible translations use ‘man’ however ‘Enowsh’ can mean ‘man’ or ‘humanity’ the latter of which is what was intended here.)

Once students have completed the worksheet, introduce the second clip.

Clip 2

  • Start time: 00.36.46
  • End time: 00.39.56
  • Clip length: 3 minutes 10 seconds

Barbie and Ken have found the school. Ken tells Barbie he’s going to pop into the library to look at books on trucks. Meanwhile Barbie spots Sasha, the girl she has seen in her dream, sitting with her friends having lunch. As she walks over to the table, Barbie is stopped by a passing student who asks what she is doing. Barbie asks the name of the girl in her vision and the student tells her that it is Sasha, and that she mustn’t talk to her. Barbie tells the student not to worry as everyone really likes her and thinks she’s pretty. On arriving at the table, Barbie introduces herself as the girls’ favourite woman of all time – Barbie. The group wonders if Barbie has escaped from an asylum, and asks if she’s a professional bimbo. Barbie proceeds to tell them that Barbie isn’t a bimbo, she’s a doctor, a lawyer a senator and a Nobel prize winner. One of the girls asks if she has won a Nobel prize and Barbie says that she hasn’t, but that Barbie has. The girls tell her that they haven’t played with Barbie dolls since they were young, and that even then it was horrible. Barbie is shocked by this and asks why. Sasha proceeds to tell her that Barbie has been making women feel bad about themselves since she was invented. She represents everything wrong with the culture – sexualised capitalism and unreachable ideals. Barbie interrupts, saying that Sasha is describing something stereotypical, and Sasha tells her to look at herself. Barbie replies that she is technically ‘Stereotypical Barbie’. Sacha continues that she set the feminist movement back by fifty years, destroyed girls’ innate sense of worth and that she is killing the planet with her glorification of rampant consumerism. Barbie, visibly shaken, replies that she is meant to make girls happy and powerful. Sasha replies that she is powerful and that until Barbie turned up, she hadn’t thought about her in years. She finishes by calling Barbie a fascist. This makes Barbie cry, so she excuses herself and runs off.

Ask students what they think about what Sasha said to Barbie. Establish the three accusations she made against her:

  • She set the feminist movement back by fifty years.
  • She destroyed girls’ innate sense of worth.
  • She is killing the planet with her glorification of rampant consumerism.

Discuss Barbie’s response to Sasha. She believed that she made girls happy and powerful. Is this true? Remind the class of the gender stereotypes they discussed at the start of the lesson. Invite them to suggest ways that Barbie (the character and the toy) stereotypes women.

Remind the class that in Barbieland, women have all the power, and the Kens only exist as accessories to Barbies. This is an example of a matriarchal society, one where women hold more power than men.

However, Sasha’s point is that a world run by Barbies is not a perfect world. Would they like to live in a world run by Barbies? Would they like to live in a world run by Kens?

Distribute the A Radical World handout, explaining that the New Testament part of the Bible contains some verses that speak of a radical way of living.

The answers are as follows:

As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did.

In his very nature he was God.
Jesus was equal with God. But Jesus didn’t take advantage of that fact.

Instead, he made himself nothing.
He did this by taking on the nature of a servant.
He was made just like human beings.

Philippians 2:5-7

 Jesus didn’t cling to power even though he was God. He was humble.
Jesus sat down and called for the 12 disciples to come to him. Then he said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last. They must be the servant of everyone.”

Mark 9:35

 Jesus told his followers they should put the needs of other people first.
There is no Jew or Gentile. There is no slave or free person. There is no male or female. That’s because you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 In God’s family, everyone is equal.
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death. And there will be no more sadness. There will be no more crying or pain. Things are no longer the way they used to be.

Revelation 21:4

 At the end of time God will put everything right and take away sadness and pain.

SUMMARY AND ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING:

Recap what students have learned so far:

  • Stereotypes create a fixed and overly simplistic view of a group of people.
  • A patriarchal system is one where men have more power than women.
  • A matriarchal system is one where women have more power than men.
  • The Psalm described a world where men and women have been given equal power and authority to rule over the planet together with God ultimately in charge.
  • Jesus introduced a radical world where everyone is equal and people are taught to put others first.

Invite students to write an acrostic poem using the phrase ‘PERFECT WORLD’ to describe the radical world Jesus introduced. Explain that an acrostic poem is one that uses the letters of one word to form the first letter of each line. Use the Acrostic Poem worksheet for this.

YOU WILL NEED:

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