“How do I talk to my kid about masculinity… without accidentally reinforcing the very ideas I’m trying to challenge?”
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering this, you’re not alone. Conversations with kids about gender and patriarchy can feel like tough waters to navigate - especially when trying to do it in ways that are age appropriate, emotionally supportive, and intersectional. You might find yourself questioning: do I know enough to avoid doing harm? How do I hold the conversation once emotions from my child start surfacing? What if I say the wrong thing - or don’t have the answers they need?
One powerful — and often overlooked — tool for starting these conversations? Picturebooks.
This 90-minute workshop offers practical guidance for using picturebooks to start and sustain meaningful conversations with young children about masculinity — and how it’s shaped by systems like patriarchy, racism, and classism.
Led by Professor Shoshana Magnet, you’ll walk away from this workshop with:
Suggestions of picturebooks to spark age-appropriate, thoughtful conversations about masculinity with young children
Social and emotional learning exercises to help kids name and process their feelings around big topics
Guidance on how to stay grounded and supportive as conversations about gender unfold
🗓 When: July 16, 9:30am–11:00am PT
📍 Where: Online
👥 Who: Voice Male members only
This workshop is especially helpful for those talking with children aged 3–10, though the tools and approaches can be adapted for older ages too.
🎓 About Your Facilitator: Dr. Shoshana Magnet, Professor, University of Ottawa
Shoshana Magnet is Full Professor of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. She recently co-edited (with Dr. Celeste Orr) a special issue of Feminist Theory launching the field of “Feminist Loneliness Studies” (2022) and is co-editing (along with Darby Babin and Ravida Din) a special issue of Feminism & Psychology on “Feminist Approaches to Child and Adolescent Mental Health.” Her research is on feminist approaches to children’s mental health and she writes a listserv on picturebooks aimed at helping educators, parents, pediatricians, general practitioners, and psychologists speak with children about big feelings including grief, anxiety, and fear as well as issues related to social justice including racism, settler colonialism, sexism and homo- and trans- phobias. Her research outreach website can be found at www.picturebookstogrow.com
Shoshana’s books include the monograph When Biometrics Fail: Race, Gender and the Technology of Identity (Duke UP, 2011), and the edited collections The New Media of Surveillance (co-edited with Kelly Gates, Routledge 2010) and Feminist Surveillance Studies (co-edited with Rachel Dubrofsky, Duke University Press 2015).
👉 This event is exclusively for Voice Male members.