The role breakers
Changing gender stereotypes through sports, science and technology

There are still certain sports, activities, and professions that are considered typically female or typically male. This already starts in childhood. The Amsterdam organization “Project Fearless”, and the project “Beeldenbrekers” want to change that and show girls what they are made of.

The timer is set. 40 seconds. The teenage girl raises both fists, she is wearing thick boxing gloves. The heavy punching bag is right in front of her. The timer beeps and she starts. With all her might, she punches the bag, almost causing it to topple over with her kicks. Cheers from the other participants echo through the room. The shouting motivates her to get the most out of herself. In the end, her face is bright red. The girl is completely out of breath. But she is beaming because she has never felt as strong as she does today.

Self-confidence through sport
This is the goal of the Amsterdam-based organization Project Fearless: to make girls self-confident, strong, and fearless through various programs.
In order to do so, on the one hand, various sports workshops are offered, such as skateboarding, a five-kilometer-run training, bouldering, touch rugby, and kickboxing. On the other hand, there are so-called building workshops in art, science, and handicrafts to show the girls that they can create something with their own hands. The courses usually last several weeks, but there are also one-day trial events. They take place at various locations.

The project is financed in several ways: partly through sponsorship from local companies, but also through a contribution by the parents. An eight-week workshop on art and activism costs about 50 euros, skateboarding 150 euros. “But we also have partial and full scholarships,” says Merida Miller, founder of Project Fearless. “We don’t want anybody to be unable to join because of finances.” Some workshops even are for free, though donations are requested. The target group of the project, which started in 2019, is girls and non-binary children between the ages of nine and 14. So far, more than 200 of them have taken part in the courses.
One of them is 13-year-old Raya, who started at Project Fearless when she was eleven and has been participating in skateboarding workshops and run-clubs ever since. “At first I was a little nervous about going to skateboarding because I thought it was more for boys. But I saw that it was all girls and female coaches, and I was relieved.”
For Raya, Project Fearless is a safe place where she can be herself and where making mistakes is not a problem. At this point, young beginners even come to her and admire her for her tricks, she says.

Jobs based on typical gender characteristics
Tess Schoneveld also knows that there is still a lot of work to be done concerning outdated gender roles in the Netherlands. She is a project manager at the Amsterdam Expertise Center Gender Diversity in Technology and IT, where she is responsible for the Beeldenbrekers project, which informs elementary school students about gender diversity in tech professions.

In the Netherlands, many professions are still based on outdated notions of supposed gender characteristics.

“In the Netherlands, many professions are still based on outdated notions of supposed gender characteristics. Women work in caring professions or with children, men work in technology or politics. That’s why we want to show children that things can be different.” Schoneveld’s assessment is also confirmed by figures from the Dutch Federal Statistical Office. For example, according to 2021 surveys, out of ten people working in technical professions, eight are male. In pedagogical professions, on the other hand, seven out of ten are female, and in caring professions as many as eight.

Schools can sign up for a free Beeldenbrekers lesson on the website to invite a female expert to present their technical job. According to Schoneveld, this offer is taken up by elementary schools throughout the Netherlands. The project is funded by the Equal Opportunities Alliance of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, but individual classes are also sponsored by companies.

Only male role models
“The students learn that the guest for the day builds bridges, then they paint a picture. Usually with male people,” Schoneveld says. The idea of a female architect is to show, especially to female students, what is possible professionally.

“Many girls don’t consider such work for themselves,” Schoneveld explains. “That’s because they don’t have female role models in these professions. When we ask them if they know anyone, it’s always their father, grandpa, or neighbor, but rarely a woman.”

In the lessons in which boys and girls take part, it is often the first time that girls come into contact with technical jobs. That’s why the Beeldenbrekers project is primarily about normalizing the image of a woman in a technical profession. For example, female software engineers, 3D printing engineers, or product developers will introduce themselves. “The kids then get to touch building materials, try out a technical device or just put on a helmet, for example, depending on how old they are.” One of the women, she said, had the children scan various barcodes with a product scanner, after which words were displayed that they had to use to form sentences.

The lack of female role models has also been experienced by Catherine Sorbara, who has a PhD in neurosciences and teaches workshops on science and climate change at Project Fearless. “My father, my brother, my teachers. All my role models in engineering, math, and science were male,” she explains. As a girl, she says, she therefore always felt she had to prove herself extra against the boys.

In her eight-week course at Project Fearless, she shows the girls experiments to understand the basics of climate change. “We simulate global warming in a bottle or develop concepts for sustainable and efficient wind turbines,” Sorbara said.

“I want them to have the opportunity to try things out for themselves. In school, science subjects are about getting good grades, but it should be normal to fail, too. That’s how it is in science. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you’re wrong.” For her, the focus is not on success, but on having fun with science experiments, she said.

She also wants to provide the girls with something to do against the disturbing reports about climate change in the media, she said. “The girls know very well how delicate the situation is and that the world is not doing enough. That can scare them. But through what they learn with me, they can become proactive and no longer feel so helpless.”

Targeting as young an audience as possible
Eleven-year-old Meesha, who has now been participating in running and skateboarding workshops at Project Fearless since one year and a half, also had to learn what she is capable of. “When I first started running, I was nervous about what people might think if I walked parts sometimes instead of running them.” Since then, however, her running has improved greatly and she is very confident because of it.

It’s these insecurities that girls have that led Merida Miller to choose the youngest possible target audience for Project Fearless. “Young girls are not afraid. They dare to do things and try everything. But when they hit puberty, they start to doubt themselves and worry about what others might think of them, how they’ll be received, and how they’ll look.”

Tess Schoneveld of Project Beeldenbrekers also says, “We focus on children from five to twelve. We do that because, at that age, role models are not yet so entrenched. In the course of their lives, children are strongly confronted with them in everyday life and the media, and we want to pre-empt that by presenting women in typical ‘men’s jobs.’”

Changing the image of gender roles
Raya’s father Jake Noakes confirms this: “Raya made a short promotional film for the project in a workshop organized by Project Fearless, together with a female filmmaker. In the process, she saw that there are also women in what is perceived as a rather typical male profession. That’s an inspiration to her. At school, kids hear all the time that girls can do everything boys can. But that’s just theory. At Project Fearless, the girls get to experience it for themselves.”

It’s an influence that’s having an impact, as Raya dreams of finding a creative career later in life,maybe with film. But until that happens, she’s determined to become a mentor at Project Fearless as soon as possible, to give young girls the support she’s received herself.

What the children who participated in Project Beeldenbrekers in elementary school will decide is anyone’s guess now. But no matter what the future holds, the girls now know that they are strong and fearless enough to do anything they want to.