He Said/She Said

This video is based on data collected from Canadian teenagers and highlights the different messages and experiences of youth in relationships with peers and significant others. The accompanying discussion plan invites youth to think about and discuss their own experiences and utilize their church’s resources.

Have youth watch the clip. Divide into separate groups of females and males. Give members of each group the appropriate set of statements below. After reading the statements, have the youth discuss them and what they remember from the video clip. Do any of these responses remind them of their own experiences? Do they have experiences or thoughts to add to the lists?

Females:
This is the essence of what the girls said:

Girls are more likely to be comfortable talking about feelings and solving problems verbally, and they feel expected to do so.
Parents, especially fathers, protect girls from learning how to stand up for themselves.
Girls are often nasty to each other, showing indirect aggression by spreading rumours, excluding others, and saying mean things behind other girls’ backs.
Girls hesitate to report the abuse they experience.
Adults in power relations with teenaged girls can humiliate them without being aware of doing so.
The media bombard girls with degrading messages about what it means to be female.

Males:
This is the essence of what the boys said:

Boys feel that they are expected to be strong and suffer in silence.
Parents expect boys to fend for themselves, to “take it” and, if necessary, respond aggressively.
Boys are more likely to be rewarded for dealing with frustrations physically.
Boys who experience violence are more hesitant to report it.
There are very few positive, non-violent, male role models.
Boys find it hard to live up to media messages about masculinity.

Bring the two groups back together. Give them the following information.

While close to half of both females and males never experience violence in their relationships, about 25% of them are victims of verbal abuse on a daily basis and 17% are themselves verballfy violent daily.
Whereas almost 1 girl in 10 is a victim of physical abuse on a daily basis, 1 boy in 5 experiences physical violence daily.
Only 1 girl in 17 is a physical victimizer but 1 boy in every 7 reports physically victimizing others.

Have the youth discuss with each other what they think are the many factors that contribute to teen violence. (Think about factors involved in communities, the media, the church, schools and families.) How can they begin to change attitudes and behaviours? What are some of the resources of their faith community that can help them to change attitudes and behaviours?

The short clips above and below include discussion about why some teens think girls or boys are mean to each other and how it makes them feel when it happens. These can be included as part of the discussion in order to prompt teens to talk about their own experiences and feelings. You can also use the discussion exercise demonstrated in the clip to help teens to talk about their experiences.

Credits: Based on the research of the ‘Creating Peaceful Learning Environments’ team of the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Family Violence Research Centre in Fredericton, NB, Canada.