WorkerAnts.com is dedicating this week to raising awareness for women's issues in honor of International Women's Day on Sunday, March 8, 2015. The United Nations has chosen this year's theme to be "Empowering Women - Empowering Humanity: Picture It!"
One issue that people face around the world is gender stereotyping. Overly-simplistic generalizations based on gender cause us to misunderstand and devalue women and men. Stereotypes lead to discrimination, arbitrary limitations on behavior and choice and cause suffering for those who do not fit the stereotype (which is most of us). If we accept gender stereotypes, we treat people as two-dimensional caricatures of women and men and not individuals with unique personalities, skills and dreams.
Breaking these gender myths is a great way to empower women and share a bit of women's history as well. The staff here at WorkerAnts compiled a short list of common stereotypes and matched up women who have proven them wrong.
We hope you found this activity to be as entertaining and informative as we did. In fact, we found it so fun to read about these women that we would love for you to help us expand our list. There are hundreds more famous women, and probably millions of unnamed women throughout history, who have broken stereotypes surrounding women, so post a comment and let us about a woman you admire and the stereotype she had broken. Share here or on our site, WorkerAnts.com.