Topic of the lesson
Politics has a female face
Objectives: SWBAT (students will be able to) * Use proper vocabulary on the topic * Be ready to discuss the problems of gender stereotypes in politics * Develop their critical thinking * Express their thoughts and opinions in debates * Develop their listening skills
Materials needed: * Tapescript for the text for listening * Handouts for reading and discussing * Dictionaries
Time required: 90 minutes
The quotation of the lesson
"Whether women are better than men I cannot say, but I can say they are certainly no worse." - Golda Meir, PM of Israel
The motto of the lesson “We can do it”

The procedure I. Organization moment. Greeting (Організаційний момент. Привітання
The lesson begins with a chant “Don’t worry, I’ll do it” by C.Graham in a form of dialogue.
St. Don’t worry, I’ll do it That’s a promise.
T. You will?
St. Of course, I will I’ll do it. You’ll see. That’s a promise.
T. Don’t forget!
St. Don’t worry. I won’t. That’s a promise. You’ll see. You can count on me. II. Motivation. (Мотивація навчальної діяльності)
You are hard-working and educated persons. Today I expect you to be active at the lesson, express your opinions and share your brilliant ideas on the topic. III. Introduction to the topic. (Підведення до теми уроку)
Look at these pictures.

Do you know these people?
What are these women famous for?
What countries do they represent? IV. Presenting the topic of the lesson. (Повідомлення теми і мети уроку).
So, the topic of the lesson today is “Politics has a female face”.
At this lesson we are going to enrich the vocabulary, to develop critical thinking, to discuss such question as political equality in different countries and to be engaged into debates about gender stereotypes. V. Warming-up.
2-minute debates. Instructions.
Form the pairs. Choose the topic for discussion.
With a partner, engage in these fun 2-minute debates. Students A firmly believe in the opinions on the left, Students B strongly support the opinions on the right. Express your opinions.
Variant A A woman’s place is in the home Vs. Woman can do whatever they like.
Variant B Women are the best leaders. Vs. Men have always been the best leaders.
Let’s listen to your opinions. VI. The main part of the lesson
Teacher
Thank you for your participating. Let’s talk about Ukraine.
Are men and women equal in our country?
When did women get the vote in Ukraine?
Are there the same numbers of men and women in our country’s government?
Has there ever been a female president/ prime minister in Ukraine?
What examples of woman leadership do you know around the world?
Sixty-nine women from fifty-two countries have been elected or appointed to serve as prime minister, president, or chancellor. In the US, only thirty-one women from twenty-three states have ever been governor.
Seventeen women lead sixteen countries on six continents. The countries with women leaders are: Germany, Ireland, Finland (both president and prime minister), Liberia, India, Argentina, Bangladesh, Iceland, Croatia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, Kyrgyzstan and Slovakia.
(Presentation “They can do it”)
Do you want to know more about famous women-leaders? VII. Jig-saw reading.
Form the groups according to the rows you sit in.
1-st group reads about Margaret Thatcher
2-nd group reads about Angela Merkel
3-d group reads about Yulia Tymoshenko
While-reading.
Vocabulary. Underline any words you do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meaning.
Text 1
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher,( born 13 October 1925) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. Thatcher is the only woman to have held either post.
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13 October 1925 to Alfred Roberts, originally from Northamptonshire, and his wife, the former Beatrice Ethel Stephenson from Lincolnshire. Thatcher spent her childhood in the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, where her father owned two grocery shops. She and her older sister Muriel (born 1921,) were raised in the flat above the larger of the two located near the railway line. Her father was active in local politics and religion. He came from a Liberal family but stood—as was then customary in local government—as an Independent.
Margaret Roberts was brought up a strict Methodist by her father. Having attended Huntingtower Road Primary School, she won a scholarship Her school reports show hard work and commitment, but not brilliance. Outside the classroom she played hockey and also enjoyed swimming and walking. Finishing school during the Second World War, she applied for a scholarship to attend Somerville College, Oxford, but was only successful when the winning candidate dropped out. She went to Oxford in 1943 and studied Natural Sciences, specialising in Chemistry.
At the 1950 and 1951 elections, she fought the safe Labour seat of Dartford. Although she lost out to Norman Dodds, she reduced the Labour majority in the constituency by 6,000. She was, at the time, the youngest ever female Conservative candidate and her campaign attracted a higher than normal amount of media attention for a first time candidate.
Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979. While active in the Conservative Party in Kent, she met Denis Thatcher, whom she married in 1951, conforming to his Anglicanism. Denis was a wealthy divorced businessman who ran his family's firm; he later became an executive in the oil industry. In 1953 twins, Carol and Mark, were born.
Thatcher established herself as a potent conference speaker at the Conservative Party Conference of 1966, with a strong attack on the high-tax policies of the Labour Government. She argued that lower taxes served as an incentive to hard work. Thatcher was one of few Conservative MPs to support Leo Abse's Bill to decriminalise male homosexuality and voted in favour of David Steel's Bill to legalise abortion, as well as a ban on hare coursing.[ She supported the retention of capital punishment and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws.
Text 2
Angela Dorothea Merkel, (born 17 July 1954) is the current Chancellor of Germany.
Angela Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in Hamburg on 17 July 1954, the daughter of Horst Kasner (born 6 August 1926 in Berlin-Pankow), a Lutheran pastor and his wife, Herlind (born 8 July 1928 in Danzig, as Herlind Jentzsch), a teacher of English and Latin. Her mother was once a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
She has a brother, Marcus (born 7 July 1957), and a sister, Irene (born 19 August 1964).
Merkel was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978. While a student, she participated in the reconstruction of the ruin of the Moritzbastei, a project students initiated to create their own club and recreation facility on campus. Such an initiative was unprecedented in the GDR of that period, and initially resisted by the University of Leipzig.
Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof from 1978 to 1990. She learned to speak Russian fluently, and earned a statewide prize for her proficiency. After being awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis on quantum chemistry[ she worked as a researcher.
At the first post-reunification general election in December 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag from a constituency which includes the districts of Nordvorpommern and Rügen, as well as the city of Stralsund. she became Minister for Women and Youth in Helmut Kohl's 3rd cabinet. In 1994, she was made Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety,
When the Kohl government was defeated in the 1998 general election, Merkel was named Secretary-General of the CDU.(Christian Democratic Union)
Text 3
Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko (born November 27, 1960) is a Ukrainian politician.
Tymoshenko was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from January 24 to September 8, 2005, and again from December 18, 2007 to March 4. She is the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" party and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
She has been a practising economist and academic. Prior to her political career, Yulia Tymoshenko was a successful but controversial businesswoman in the gas industry, becoming by some estimates one of the richest people in the country. Before becoming Ukraine's first female Prime Minister in 2005, Tymoshenko co-led the Orange Revolution.
Tymoshenko was a candidate in the Ukrainian presidential elections of 2010.
Yulia was born in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) to Ludmila Nikolaevna Telegina, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, and Vladimir Abramovich Hryhyan, (there has been speculation her father is of Armenian descent). Her father left the family when Yulia was three years old. Tymoshenko took the surname of her mother, under which she graduated.
After graduating with honors from the Economic Department of Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1984 Tymoshenko worked as an engineer-economist in a machine-building plant in Dnipropetrovsk until 1988.
From 1995 to 1997, Tymoshenko was the president of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a privately owned middleman company that became the main importer of Russian natural gas to Ukraine in 1996. During that time she was nicknamed "gas princess".
Yulia Tymoshenko entered politics in 1996, and was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) from the Kirovohrad Oblast, winning a record 92.3% of the vote in her constituency. In Parliament she joined the faction Constitutional Centre.
Tymoshenko was re-elected in 1998 as number 6 on the party list of Hromada. Tymoshenko was a leading figure in the party, and became the Chair of the Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada.
From 1999 to 2001, Tymoshenko was the Deputy Prime Minister for the fuel and energy sector in the cabinet of Viktor Yushchenko. As energy Deputy Prime Minister, she virtually ended many corrupt arrangements in the energy sector. Under her stewardship, Ukraine's revenue collections from the electricity industry grew by several thousand percent.
On January 24, 2005, Tymoshenko was appointed acting Prime Minister of Ukraine under Yushchenko's presidency. On February 4, Tymoshenko's premiership appointment was ratified by the parliament with an overwhelming majority of 373 votes (226 were required for approval). On July 28, Forbes named her the third most powerful woman in the world, behind only Condoleezza Rice and Wu Yi.
Yulia Tymoshenko is married to Oleksandr Tymoshenko, a businessman. They have a daughter Eugenia (born in 1980).
Tymoshenko and her husband rent a house in Kyiv (the house belongs to relatives) and own a house in Dnipropetrovsk. According to Tymoshenko her braids are a family tradition.
After reading. Comprehension check 1. How old is she? 2. What family was she born in? 3. What education does she have? 4. Where did she study? 5. What can you say about her family life? 6. When did her political career start? 7. What are her achievements as a Prime minister/ Cansellor? VIII. Word search.
Look in your dictionaries to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms for the words “local”, “election”.
Share your findings with your partners.
Make questions using the words you found.
Ask your partner/ group your questions. IX. Relaxation
Watching the video “Women throughout the history” and relaxing. X. Listening comprehension
Teacher. Clearly, the equality between men and women in politics is not reached and the situation evolves slowly. Sure, women acquired the right to vote less than a century ago, and many countries still deny that right to that half of their population.
Now we are going to listen to the text “Kuwaiti women get the vote”
Pre-listening. (Use a world map) 1. Do you like to learn something new about politics? 2. What do you know about Kuwait? Where is it situated? 3. Do you know what kind of religion they have? 4. Some Islamists say women should not become leaders. What do you say to this? 5. What do you think of Kuwaiti women getting the vote? 6. Do you think the other Arabic countries will allow their women to vote?
While-listening .
Differentiation. Some pupils fill in the gaps without prompts, the other with prompts.
The tapescript
Kuwaiti women get the vote
BNE: Women in Kuwait can now vote in local and national elections. On Monday (May 16), a new law was passed in the Kuwaiti parliament to give women the vote for the very first time. Law makers had a marathon ten-hour discussion to come to a decision. Of course, all of the politicians who passed the bill were men. There were 35 votes in favour of giving women the vote, 23 against, and one person decided not to vote. Supporters of the new law cheered loudly at the news. Kuwait's women now join women from neighbouring Qatar, Oman and Bahrain in having the vote.
Traditional Islamist politicians opposed the new law. They believe Islamic teachings say women should not enter politics or have positions of leadership. However, this does not agree with the Kuwaiti constitution, which says there must be equality between the sexes. Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah immediately told reporters: "I congratulate the women of Kuwait for having achieved their political rights." Women may not be able to vote until 2009 because officials need to tie up loose ends from Monday's law.

HO 1 Variant 1 for students (fill the gaps with the prompts)
-------------------------------------------------
Neighbouring vote marathon cheered law passed
BNE: Women in Kuwait can now __________national elections. On Monday (May 16), a new ________was passed in the Kuwaiti parliament to give women the vote for the very first time. Law makers had a __________ ten-hour discussion to come to a decision. Of course, all of the politicians who ________ the bill were men. There were 35 votes in favour of giving women the vote, 23 against, and one person decided not to vote. Supporters of the new law _____________loudly at the news. Kuwait's women now join women from ________ Qatar, Oman and Bahrain in having the vote.
-------------------------------------------------
Constitution loose enter congratulate equality opposed
Traditional Islamist politicians ___________ the new law. They believe Islamic teachings say women should not ______politics or have positions of leadership. However, this does not agree with the Kuwaiti__________, which says there must be______between the sexes. Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah immediately told reporters: "I________the women of Kuwait for having achieved their political rights." Women may not be able to vote until 2009 because officials need to tie up________ends from Monday's law.
HO 2 Variant 2 for students (fill the gaps without the prompts)
Listen and fill in the spaces.
Kuwaiti women get the vote BNE: Women in Kuwait can now vote in . On Monday (May 16), a new law was passed in the Kuwaiti parliament to give women the vote . Law makers had a marathon ten-hour discussion to come to a decision. Of course, all of the politicians who passed the bill were men. There were of giving women the vote, 23 against, and one person decided not to vote. Supporters of the new law cheered loudly at the news. Kuwait's women neighbouring Qatar,
Oman and Bahrain in having the vote. Traditional Islamist politicians . They believe Islamic teachings say women should not enter politics or have positions of leadership. However, this with the Kuwaiti constitution, which says there must be equality . Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al- Ahmad al-Sabah immediately told reporters: "I congratulate the women of Kuwait for having achieved their political rights/'
Women may not be able to vote until 2009 because officials need to from Monday's law. XI. Speaking. Role-playing.
Role A. (Woman).
You believe men are the stronger sex. You think they should always be the leaders. You think your country will be stronger if men work and women look after the men and children. You think men are better at voting and women don’t need to vote. You think feminists are not real women.
Role B. (Woman).
You are head of a feminist organization in your country. You are a strong, strong woman. You have always beaten men in everything you have done –at school and at work. You play basketball. You believe it is essential all women vote to create equality.
Role C. (A man).
You are a 21-st man. You strongly believe that women and men are equal. However, you do think it is a man’s and not a woman’s job to vote. You want to be a house husband –stay at home while your partner works. You love housework. You hate sexists men –you think they are selfish and lazy.
Role D. (A man)
You believe that men are physically stronger, so it is their role to be leaders. You think it is the job of women to have babies and look after their men and children. You think feminists are damaging society. If women go to work, their children have to stay at home alone.
Change roles and repeat the role-play.
After the role play, talk about whether you believed what you were saying in your roles. XII. Summarizing.
Let’s turn back to Ukraine.
What was the 31-st of October famous for?
Do you know how many women were elected as deputies in our village?
It is obviously that a large number of women are active in political parties and civil society in general, but in villages few women are found in political leadership positions.
So I propose to finish our lesson with some advice from the “Handbook for Women Candidates”: 1. Plan and develop your own election campaign activities. 2. Have volunteer supporters and show them your appreciation and respect. 3. During your campaign focus on those people, who are most likely to support you. 4. Create positive, optimistic and simple message for people.
Do you think these are the good ideas for the beginners?
As a result let’s finish the acrostic poem about women leaders.
Ladies are
Energetic
Active
Democratic
Effective
Rulers
XIII. . Home work. 1. Make a poster about the history women and the vote in Ukraine. Include the information about regional ,district and village women leaders. Show it to your classmates in your next lesson. Discuss with your classmates the most interesting points in your posters. 2. Write a letter to the imaginary Prime minister of the country where women haven’t voted yet and try to convince him they should have the right to vote.