This is the first of three lessons that address gender stereotypes. The objective of this lesson is to encourage students to develop their own critical intelligence with regard to culturally inherited stereotypes, and to the images presented in the media - film and television, rock music, newspapers and magazines.

This lesson helps students become more aware of the media's role in determining what, and who, are perceived as being cool.

To make students aware of the ways in which male violence is used and promoted in advertising.

In this lesson, students analyze their own body image and consider what they wish they could change.

This lesson helps students understand how self-image can influence lifestyle choices.

This lesson lets students take a good look at our society's pressures to conform to standards of beauty - particularly to be thin - and the related prejudice against being "overweight".

These lessons are an adaptation of Grade 8 lessons from the Curriculum Healthy Relationships, by Men For Change, Halifax, Nova Scotia, a 53-activity, three-year curriculum designed for teens.

Images of men and women in the media are often based on stereotypical roles of males and females in our society. Because stereotyping can affect how children feel about themselves and how they relate to others, it's important that they learn to recognize and understand gender stereotypes in different media.

More often than not, we're assigned a gender identity before we're even born, and media provide a lot of the messages we get about that identity. In this section, we unpack some of the media's baggage around gender.

People who make their living producing images, such as photographers, stylists, publicists, directors and pop idols, learn how to use those signs to convey the impression they want to make. Although teen girls who are trying to send a signal to their circle of friends and pop music producers who are trying to send a signal to an audience of millions are working on different scales, the principle is very much the same. Depending on your audience, you need to tailor the signals you send out very carefully. Even your age can have a certain amount of wiggle room when dressed in the right signs.