Gender And Gender Roles

Throughout today’s society, media contributes to almost everyone’s daily life. From informative news channels to comical television shows, media proves to be effective in advertisement, releasing messages and informing the audience. Although media proves to be wildly effective in advertising, releasing messages and informing the audience, periodically destructive and misleading messages are provided to the audience and directly influencing women. Cultural critics widely agree that media tends to negatively influence women and all the critics point to research which supports the belief that women are portrayed as subordinate to men, having no

​​Gender is defined as whatever behaviors and attitudes a group considers proper for its males and females. Unlike sex, gender is something that we learn from the day we are born. “Young children begin to acquire gender role stereotypes at about the same time they develop gender identity and by the age of 3 or 4 most children” (Amanda Youmans). Peers, community, media, religion and our upbringing all play a role in the understanding of our culture and what is considered acceptable for males and females. When the sex of a child is revealed, they are automatically placed into a gender specific role with certain expectations. There are things in this world such as colors, toys, media depiction and taught behaviors that play into these gender roles.

In many shops, there seems to be an obvious separation between boys and girls items, for example, the birthday cards, books, clothes, and toys. This is shown in a variety of ways the boy's items are mainly the color blue and the books have pictures of either action figures, superheroes or tools. Whereas the girl's items are mainly the color pink. The books show pictures of fairies, princess, and Bratz. The cards also have the theme of the color pink for girls and blue for boys. The girl's cards have a lot of sparkles and pretty pictures whereas the boy's cards are covered in camo kind of illustrations and also have action figures on the covers. The children's clothes are separated into sections where there are labels for the boy's clothes and labels for the girl's clothes. The girl's clothing is all pretty and pink, it is covered in sparkles. Whereas boys clothing has camo patterns, blue colors, and pictures of action figures.

In present day all around the world, society has certain expectations for the actions and behaviors of males and females. There are many factors in our everyday lives that contribute to the gender norms that society has set. This essay will discuss how situations in life can play a part in how people treat other people based on their gender. It is believed that males are the leaders of our world, but in present day woman can do as much as men can do. From The Journal of Marriage and Family, Hu states, “Differentiated gender roles in adulthood are rooted in one’s gender role socialization. In order to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the domestic sphere, we need to examine the gendered patterns of children’s housework time.”(2015, P.1). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females that they must be taught. These roles define how females and males are viewed in society, their household, and workplace. In The Journal of Sports behavior by Hardin, he states, “Although gender role differences from biological and “Natural” exists in popular consciousness, research has long demonstrated that instead, many are long time socially constructed… Individuals understand their gender because they are given names and treated in particular ways, such as dress in pink for girls and blue for boys, that reflect social construction of gender. Bandura's social cognitive theory is key in understanding the factors in socialization”(2009, P.3). Bandura's theory of of social cognition is that behavior, environmental events, and cognitive factors are the main keys that shape attitudes and actions of an individual. Although, gender roles play a very big part in our society, specific genders are treated differently while dealing with peer influence, media influence, as well as employment.

Our society seems to have a lot of very stereotypical misconceptions about boys and girls and the role they are expected to play. Media has a pivotal role to play in this front concerning the idea of defining and framing gender. Media consumers transform the messages in that and make demeanors with

Almost every person in the world has some access to media. Whether it is through electronics like social media or the internet, or through printed media, it shapes a person’s view on many aspects of society. Media represents a vast array of societal issues. “Media representation is a way in which the media portrays groups, communities, experiences, ideas or topics from a particular ideological or vale perspective” (Beach). One of the bigger issues media portrays is gender. In today’s culture the issue of the difference between men and women can be seen heavily in media. In roles actors and actresses play on television, and through songs gender representation is an issue that is present. Most of the representations however are negative. It plays off of the stereotypes that are associated with men and women. In this ever-changing society media, through various forms of entertainment, plays a negative role in the representation of gender.

Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.

Mass media has influenced gender norms in the United States since the 1950’s when television became a household phenomenon. Per Jacqueline Coombs in an article titled Gender Differences in the Influence of Television on Gender Ideology, she asserts, “television is a powerful source in disseminating information and shaping opinion, exposing people from many different social settings to the same messages” (207). These messages can influence gender norms and reinforce personal gender identity. Throughout the evolution of television, gender roles have expanded portraying women as leading character. However, there is still an undercurrent of patriarchal ideology.

Julia Wood argues that media potraits a woman poorly. She states, “All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical, and limiting perceptions. Three themes describe how media represent gender. First, women are underrepresented, which falsely implies that men are the cultural standard and women are unimportant or invisible. Second, men and women are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of gender.

From a young age, people are taught to behave according to their gender, often through media such as television and film. The portrayal of both men and women on media would influence people to have the mindset that there is only one certain way to act for each gender, therefore altering the behavior of the viewers, making them think that they should behave according to media’s depiction of their gender.

This source is about the gender roles in America. It discusses the different ways that the media influences gender stereotypes in women. It compares the present to the future. According to this paper, women are often sexualized and put in proactive clothing. Women are portrayed as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives, and parents. This benefits my paper because this shows how the media has a negative effect on the stereotypes of women. It supports the theory that the media is one of the main causes of the negative stereotype and traditional gender roles.

Gender socialization often begins early once parents are shown the sex of their child; from then on, baby showers are planned according to gender “appropriate” colors, which are often pink for girls and blue for boys. Even differences in how children are spoke to can be picked up easily in Western cultures. Girls are called pretty and sweet, whereas boys are handsome and strong. Ultimately, the way children learn to identify with their gender culture is in part due to not only family and friends, media, schools, and religion, but also from the toys that may inexplicitly advertise gender expectations. Gender-typed toys may be bought for children as a way for parents to encourage and reinforce gender-appropriate behaviors. However, recent debates have engulfed toy manufacturers and major retailers, which has brought about changes in toy design and marketing in an effort to make reflect more realistic and gender neutral options.

In today's modern world, mass media plays a significant role in stereotypes of both men and women. For instance, the broadcasting of television is a major influence that shapes the way society views gender roles based on their beliefs, attitudes, and opinions. As much as we portray television as a source of entertainment, it is in television where we come across gender inequality and sexism. Believe it or not, television is a factor that is teaching society the way men and women should be seen at work and at home. From the point of view of television, women tend to be either stay at home moms, sex symbols, unemployed or with a low paying job, emotional, and passive. Men on the other hand, tend to be heroes, or alcoholics, have high paying jobs, or incapable of living without a woman who can clean up after them.

Women continue to be underrepresented on television and in other media forms compared with men on television and the actual population. The underrepresentation of female characters is particularly profound in drama and action movies and somewhat less so in situation comedies. A recent analysis of music videos from multiple music television networks found three times as many males as females. Within film rather than television, there was a study conducted that proved that the content analysis of popular G-rated titles and found a 3-1 ratio in favor of males. This is absolutely absurd and this is exactly why I wanted to focus my essay on gender and the media, but particularly the misrepresentation of women in the media.

Gender stereotypes are everywhere. ‘Both masculinities and femininities come into existence at specific times and places and are always subject to change.’ (Connell, 1995: 185 cited in Wharton, 2012: 6). The term gender is a ‘doing’ word. It is a constant, active process. A role, is the expected behaviour which is associated with a status. Roles are performed according to social norms, shared rules that guide people’s behaviour in specific situations.’ (The sociology of gender). The media play a huge role, it is argued, in acculturating men and women into separate gender roles based on their sex. Implying the idea that gender is learned and not ‘human nature’ (Jaggar, 1983) (Ross, Karen 2011).