When Girl Scout Nia Wilkerson-Harris was considering ideas for her Gold Award project, she was convinced no ordinary project would do. Wilkerson-Harris, a member of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania, wanted her project to focus on something bigger than just herself. More specifically, she wanted it to help make the world a more inclusive space. Eventually, it clicked. CAPA graduate Wilkerson-Harris would go on to organize an eight-week workshop at Mighty Writers South, located at 15th and Christian streets, aimed at using reading and writing to help students ages 7 to 10 better understand gender stereotypes. Her project was completed in the spring.
“We talked about how gender stereotypes affect people and what careers they go into,” said 18-year-old Wilkerson-Harris in a phone interview. “We also worked on their social skills, their motivation skills and their confidence.”
Wilkerson-Harris said that every workshop would begin with a gender-related prompt for the students to write about. Some examples are, “Why are some careers dominated by different genders?” And, “Why do your parents have the job they have?”
After the writing prompt, Wilkerson-Harris’s workshop would often contain lots of games and activities (and also snacktime). One game was called Gender Box.
“That was a game where students would draw a hobby or something they enjoy and put it into a box that’s labeled either boy, girl or nonbinary,” said Wilkerson-Harris. For instance, somebody might draw a book, a doll or a video game and place it in a corresponding box. The class would then talk about why certain drawings were placed in each box.
Another game was called Kindness Bingo, in which each student was given a bingo board with acts of kindness, such as holding a door or saying something positive to someone. Students had to complete each action before they could place a chip on the bingo square.
Wilkerson-Harris said she learned a lot about how much some of the older kids knew about gender issues. For some, using the singular ‘they’ pronoun was second nature.
“Some of the kids – mostly the older ones – knew a lot about stereotypes, and the younger kids didn’t understand what gender was when they first came,” said Wilkerson-Harris. “So at the end, we were all on the same page and everyone understood gender and some of the stereotypes that come with gender.”
Some of the boys initially found it difficult to talk about gender, said Wilkerson-Harris. Eventually, they’d come around, though.
“When we were talking about emotions and stuff and some boys really didn’t like to talk about it,” she said. “After a while, they started opening up.”
One particular workshop Wilkerson-Harris ran was centered around STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects and why they tend to be unfairly dominated by men. She said part of the reason she thought the workshop was important was to encourage more women to get into STEM fields.
After graduating from CAPA, Wilkerson-Harris enrolled at Temple University, where she is now a freshman studying architecture.
