Audiovisual workshops to combat gender stereotypes
Thought-provoking ideas and proposals for audiovisual workshop concepts for nuanced and useful actions, with the aim of building critical thinking on gender stereotypes.
Stereotypes and domination
The world has long been largely structured by relations of domination (cf. Sapiens, a brief history of humanity by Yuval Noah Harari, 2015, very easily read by adolescents, for example). Domination of plant and animal nature, economic domination, professional domination, educational domination, and gendered domination, i.e. patriarchy. Domination is always destructive.
However, the relations of power and domination seem at first sight natural (“the masculine prevails over the feminine”...), whereas they are simply cultural facts, carried by representations, especially visual ones, that each person reproduces unconsciously.
Violence against women is a major societal issue, and in fact, it was the subject of much discussion during the confinement in 2020. Women are the main victims, but children and, paradoxically, even the men who perpetrate violence are also victims of the systems of representation that may have led them to these irreparable acts.
How to deal with gender stereotypes, which produce violent domination, without being normative? How can we accompany each person’s journey towards a more flexible conception of the world?
Creativity: a powerful and playful tool
The playful creativity around these subjects, with a truly artistic approach, makes it possible to tackle these questions without creating identity tensions, because the objects we are going to create are above all artistic. And the linking of questions of domination in gender relations with other spaces of domination makes it possible to produce a salutary height of view. This opens up the feeling that the question is much broader than it seems, and is, for example, very closely related to the issues of ecology (critical thinking about the relations of domination of nature, which are very destructive).
It is to be feared that it would be “explosive” to “play” with these subjects with teenagers from social backgrounds whose identity is weakened by common racism, thus asserted with strength and rigidity. My experiences show that this is quite possible, precisely through playful creativity.
Workshop proposals
I have been experimenting for a long time with audiovisual workshops on the issue of gender stereotypes. New ideas and experiences are always being invented and explored. Here are two concrete and easy to implement proposals:
Voice-over:
- A group of 3 people, in which there must be at least one man and one woman.
- The film will be shot in sequence (including title and ending credits).
- The man is filmed, like a classic interview. But, next to the camera, a woman does the voice, and the man just moves his lips, live.
- The woman talks about subjects that seem typically feminine to her.
- So the man must, for once, follow the woman and not the other way around.
- This is done in improvisation, the man will be surprised by what he finds himself saying.
- At the moment of projection, it’s very funny and playful. The device makes one go beyond judgment, the men discover an opening to the feminine which they did not suppose.
- This workshop should be offered in a group where mutual trust has been built up beforehand.
Animated films from cut out paper:
- We collect a large number of magazines, newspapers, advertisements, flyers... which we place on a common table.
- Everyone has a pair of scissors, and will cut out the images and texts that interest and inspire them, even if they don’t yet know what they are going to do.
- Then, individually or in small groups, we will imagine a film, which will be silent and shot in sequence, which arranges the images and texts, revolving around the themes of gender relations.
- This appropriation and diversion of existing messages in the media is a very playful way of appropriating the representations and taking distance.
- The moment of the projection is also very important, because the reactions of the one and the others are very enriching.
The practice of feminism seems to me to be an essential stake in the cultural actions, because the awareness of the systems of domination allows to go towards more equality, therefore to contribute to the democracy. The inequality between women and men is for me a cornerstone of the dominations that harm everyone.
But how to “put feminism into practice” concretely in public proposals? How can cultural actions, whatever their field of implementation (artistic, social, educational, professional...), arouse inner movements towards more respect of human rights? It is not a question of stating a normative feminist discourse, but of putting into practice an equality in the ways of acting. This is much more delicate and delicate to do than one might think, because it involves questioning one’s own unconscious functioning.
I share here some resources, partial, from my own pathways, practices and questionings: proposals and stories of cultural actions, working methods, methods of artistic creation and more conceptual or biographical reflections.
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Domination on Display: An Ethnological Analysis of the 51st César Ceremony
Eight years after Blanche Gardin, six years after Adèle Haenel, nothing has changed. The system has even strengthened itself.
The César ceremony is a ritual. Not an artistic ritual, but a social one, whose analysis reveals the mechanisms of domination at work in the (…) -
Patriarchal feminism
When emancipation can reproduce patterns of domination.
Surprisingly, certain forms of struggle against patriarchy can unintentionally reinforce the very structures they seek to combat, particularly (…) -
On systems of domination in the film industry
The reasons for the violence are not what you might think.
The film industry is built on deeply entrenched systems of domination. These hierarchical mechanisms legitimize violence, including sexist (…) -
Workshop immersive techniques for creating an exhibition
An account of a method for constructing a point of view and an exhibition.
Students in the Master 2 Audiovisual and Digital Media (AVMN) program at Grenoble University were asked to organize an exhibition on the theme of (…) -
A definition of feminism
A thought movement in dialogues.
Here is my definition of feminism, from my place as a man: it is for me a movement of thought and action for equal rights between women and men, (…) -
Podcast: “For a democratic and feminist pedagogy”
Dialogue between Noémie Rubat du Mérac and Benoît Labourdette on June 25, 2022.
Overview of the fundamentals of the pedagogical actions conceived and carried out by Benoît Labourdette, linked to the deconstruction of systems (…) -
Collective film shot in a movie theater
Creative participation method.
Giving a voice in a creative way to the spectators of a movie theater, before the screening of a film.I put this proposal into practice in the (…) -
Equality is not won!
A collective film (3’12s, 2022).
An intergenerational film to become more aware, and more equipped, to defend equality. -
Fragments of lives
A collective movie (3’20s, 2022).
By sharing all our views, even the most intimate ones, we become stronger! -
Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes
A collective film supervised by Benoît Labourdette (2’40s, 2021).
Collective empathy exercise. -
Women’s voices
Immersive digital device, designed by Manon Gady and Maïa Hoog.
Immersion in feminist demonstrations, in the word of women.Device conceived and realized by Manon Gady and Maïa Hoog, students of the class of (…) -
Writing workshop in inclusive language
Literary game.
Literary writing game in inclusive language, which can be offered even for a few minutes, in all types of settings and for all ages.Inclusive (…) -
Feminist Contemplation
Participatory art installation.
Words projected on the walls transform a simple place into a space that invites an intimate thought of feminism.Installation realized in (…) -
The feminine neutral
Speaking method.
Count the number of people present, and if there is a majority of women, suggest the game of using the “feminine neuter”: “all of us” instead of (…) -
In front of our eyes
Collective film (3’10s, 2021).
Behind every object, the patriarchyIt is a chain, a sequence shot: each person films an object and gives it life, through the voice, putting (…) -
Gisèle Halimi Feminist Film Festival - Ville des Lilas: “Female gaze” workshop
Film creation workshop, to decode the images.
Male gaze ? Female gaze? What is the difference? How do images place us in positions of domination or submission? In the lobby of the Garde-Chasse (…) -
What kind of world do we want?
A film by Benoît Labourdette (0’54s, muet, 2020).
Bibliography in 2020 for the emancipation of women and men. -
Audiovisual workshops to combat gender stereotypes
Methods for audiovisual creativity.
Thought-provoking ideas and proposals for audiovisual workshop concepts for nuanced and useful actions, with the aim of building critical thinking (…) -
Sexuality #01
A film by Benoît Labourdette (2’28s, 2020).
Sexuality, that intimate space that we experience as natural and spontaneous, is in fact largely constructed by our culture. For more sexual (…) -
Domination
Un film de Benoît Labourdette (1’26s, muet, 2017).
Rebattre les cartes des systèmes de domination.
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Gisèle Halimi Feminist Film Festival - Ville des Lilas: “Female gaze” workshop
Film creation workshop, to decode the images.
Male gaze ? Female gaze? What is the difference? How do images place us in positions of domination or submission? In the lobby of the Garde-Chasse (…) -
Multidisciplinary photographic exhibition creation workshop As part of the Awakening the eye training program (Institut pour la photographie).
Animation of the latest annual, hands-on image education training session for teachers, offered by the Institut pour la photographie as part of (…) -
Media and Information Education: Rethinking the Role of Journalists For a Critical Pedagogy Free from the Journalistic Lens.
Entrusting media education to journalists is like asking the manufacturer to evaluate their own product. This approach, which is widespread, (…) -
Image education as a space for connection Trusting how people see to restore dialogue.
On March 16, 2026, during the National Meeting of Regional Image Education Centres, organised by Normandie Images in Rouen, I took part in a round (…) -
Les Lilas town: day of cut paper films Open Creative workshops
Day of intergenerational filmmaking workshops at the Le Garde Chasse theatre-film theatre (Les Lilas - 93).As part of the support for the City (…)
