I eagerly signed up for this workshop because I am interested in working with clients who are exploring or are in diverse relationships, which could include less traditional ideas on gender and identity. I wanted to increase my knowledge and understanding in this area.
Before the workshop I found myself wondering away at questions like ‘What does it mean to be a woman?’ and ‘What does it mean to be a man?’ and not being satisfied with any of my answers. The workshop helped me start to develop a much clearer and more useful language to explore these sorts of questions myself and with my clients.
Our host of the workshop, Yael Nevo, was warm and humble, even though she had such a wealth of knowledge and experience in gender studies. She made the group feel at ease so we were able to discuss sometimes sensitive matters openly.
During the first half of the workshop Yael introduced concepts and language to help us engage in gender discourse and we then looked at the impact of gender and gendered values on different areas of our lives. In the second half of the workshop Yael gave us tools as coaches for engaging clients in gender discourse and for being able to see things through the lens of gender. There was plenty of discussion and I think we could have stayed talking for several more hours!
I really appreciated being given a framework for talking about gender. I learnt how we ‘perform’ gender and about the different values placed on what are seen in our culture as ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ traits. I will use what I have learnt in my coaching practice to support people exploring their gender identity and sexuality. It has also led to some interesting conversations with family and friends already!
I hope Animas can run the workshop again as I know there was a lot of interest and I would recommend it to any coach wanting to understand more about gender or looking to test their own worldview.
Thanks for reading. If you have any challenges with gender identity or sexuality that you would like some support with, let’s have a chat about how I can help. I offer a free, no obligation, introductory session where you can experience my coaching firsthand.