“Traveling through Genders” is a board game designed and produced by Crisol Proyectos Sociales aimed to provide participants an understanding of the historical events that have shaped the idea of what it means to be a female and a male in society.
It is a very useful didactic tool for people coordinating groups, for teachers and health professionals working with young people and adults so as to encourage a reflection about the cultural gender practices.
Playing is a special and different way to approach knowledge and learning processes since people can put aside the usual appeal to reason which demands an intellectual way of attention and, by relaxing and reconnecting with the pleasure of playing, the game provides an emotional experience.
The Executive Director of Crisol, Silvia Kremenchutzky explained that “This game shows that gender and the expected behaviors of males and females are historical constructs and, therefore, can be modified. Knowing that these expectations have not been always the same enables to imagine other possibilities, to denature behaviors as well as the justifications that sustain them. At the same time, it is an attempt to visualize those that set themselves as models and what happens to those that are different. It enables us to think about the concepts and prejudices we carry almost as if they were our own beliefs, and hence encourage its questioning. In what degree what we think and believe is our own idea and in what degree is it imposed from the outside and we just don’t stop to review it?”
The design of the game includes a board, chips, cards with instructions to play, a tutorial and a booklet with orientations for teachers to stimulate the group’s dynamic. Verónica Seara and her team, creators of the game, have also developed a website where they show tutorial videos with demonstrations of its implementation with teenagers at a secondary school. The website also includes a forum space so that those implementing it can share their experiences and questions so as to get orientations from the professionals that have designed the game.
The project was supported by the Cultural Promotion Regime Law of Patronage of the Cultural Ministry of Government of the City of Buenos Aires.
Crisol is an NGO created in 1994 in Argentina by an interdisciplinary group of social sciences professionals. It intends to reflect and contribute with new ideas to enrich public policies and to promote social projects focused on the most vulnerable population (those persons living in extremely poor neighborhoods and rural areas). Crisol has worked for over 22 years developing two areas (Social Counseling and Community Development) to learn more about Argentina’s social reality, through research and investigation for the subsequent field work to foster transformation and to improve life quality standards among the poorest sectors of the population.
To learn more about Crisol Proyectos Sociales, visit www,crisolps.org.ar.