Today, I went to an AISNE Conference hosted by the Carroll School at Regis College. ( a big thank you for them to host this )

AISNE conferences are events for educators and school leaders that focus on topics like diversity, equity, inclusion, and student wellness. AISNE stands for the Association of Independent Schools of New England. I am very honored to participate in one.

My first workshop was: No Gender Stereotype – Pink vs Blue. In this workshop, we were sorted into groups and did an advertisement on a random topic. For my group, we got athletic pants, and since the people in my group are all girls, we thought straight to Lululemon leggings or Nike Pros Spandex. We advertised with a girl around 13, since that’s our age, and she is trying to do squats in her baggy sweatpants, and even tried jeans, but did not improve. But when she switched to our leggings and spandex, she improved rapidly. We were all really proud of our presentation, but then the teacher asked us:

1. Why is the character advertising a girl?
2. Why is she 13 years old? Not 5? Or 81?
3. What race is she? Does that matter?

These questions made me wonder why we chose a 13 year old girl in the first place. Perhaps it is the fact that I am a girl and I can relate to her. Perhaps it is the fact that I am surrounded by girls since I go to a girl school that make me forget about the boys. But since I am surrounded with people with different races, it didn’t occur to me that only a specific type of racial identity could wear the athletic pants.

Then, we started listening to two different type of advertisements. They are both about legos. The first one includes a manly voice, with trucks that causes destruction and builds houses; with fighting tanks that protect the country. On the other hand, the next one includes a soft girly voice, with mermaids and sea creatures, an ocean palace, and princesses. As the brand advertises for the same legos, it differs in a boy version, and a girl version. There is also data showing that majority of girls buy the ocean palace lego set while most boys chose the truck lego set.

We also learned about some stereotypes that are not true. For example, in the women box, they are typically seen as housewives, mothers, soft, obedient, long hair, have body curves, makeup, emotional, dresses, and pink. Men are seen as intelligent, strong, emotionless, tattoos, short hair, tall, muscular, and blue. However, it doesn’t mean that some women can’t be smart, have tattoos, have no hair, are strong. It doesn’t mean that some men can’t be emotional, wear makeup, have long hair, more soft personality. Gender stereotypes doesn’t differ you, and you should not live just to fit in to that stereotype. As people say, great minds think DIFFERENT.

In the afternoon, I joined a ballroom dancing class. Well, you might ask, Grace, ballroom dancing has nothing to do with affinity groups or whatsoever. That was what I have thought as well, but, I soon learned that we had to dance with different people, who are different ages, different heritage, different culture, different height, and have different gender. It was awkward at first, especially dancing with the boys, since they had to rest their hands on our waist, and usually I avoid physical touch with boys. However, after an hour of dancing, and swaying to the music, I became much more comfortable with everyone, and even made three new friends.

We even learned a little song:

Tell yourself that you are worth it

Tell yourself that you are

Tell yourself that you are loved

And that you belong here.

Lastly, thank you to my chaperons, my teachers, my classmates, and everyone who participated. You all made me feel very special and I hope I can attend the conference again.