Gender Representation In House: The Softer Side

It is often said that the media and the arts are an accurate reflection of any given community. This is especially true in American pop-culture, where television shows depict the various stereotypes attributed to men and women and the roles they play in society. House, a highly popular medical drama that revolves around Dr. Gregory House and his diagnostic team, is a particularly good example as it represents the true state of the traditional gender roles in American culture today by, both, redefining and reinforcing them over the course of the show.

Over the years gender roles have changed for both males and females. The duties, behaviors, and activities we perform on daily basics are different from which male and females would have performed years ago. Male gender role or there stereotypes in the United States consist of being muscular, independent, and athletic. Female gender role or there stereotypes are being caring, sensitive, and the caregiver. The gender roles for male and female have changed over the years, originally men’s duties included working all day for their family. They were the family member that brought in the income in for the family. As for the female roles/duties they would stay home, clean the house, take care of the family, and at the end of the day cook dinner.

Stereotypes can be seen everywhere. It can be about a certain race, sexuality, gender, age, class, physical ability or disability, etc. They are ideas or beliefs that are oversimplified on the kind of person or thing they are. The reason why there are stereotypes is because we want to categorize and understand the world around us. But it is not that simple to break down things that are very complex and really understand them. Culture plays a part since it what shapes our experience and reality. Gender is not a universal thing. We are not aware how our culture impacts our way of thinking and perception of the world. But like gender, understanding culture depends on one’s perception and interpretation.

Full house is an American sitcom television series that’s about a widowed father named, Danny Tanner, his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis, and his best friend Joey Gladstone, who help Danny raise his three children, D.J, Stephanie, and Michelle. Full House came out around the late 1980s, unfortunately, due to the the increasing costs of producing the show the series was cancelled on May 23, 1995. As a young child, Full House may have seemed as your ordinary American sitcom that is about love, friendship, and family. But that is not the case in this show, as young adults and re-watching the show again, you may stumble upon the deeper meaning and messages behind the show that is significant to society today. Such as, Full house breaks gender stereotypes and it has strong, real, and important life lessons for children.

The second pattern that the show demonstrates is the dominance of heterosexuality and heterosextual privilege. All the character in the show are in a heterosexual relationship which are reflected in the nature of the space that they occupy. In the workplace and within the household the representation of heteronormative culture dominates. There is no representation of homonormative spaces or other sexual minorities in the show. The third pattern that the show demonstrates is gender performance. West and Zimmerman refer to gender performance as “doing gender” which will be later discussed in the next section. Due to the strong heteronormative nature of the show, the pattern of explicit gender performances are portrayed through clothing, behaviors, and interactions.These patterns are all related to specific locations in which each of the genders occupies. It is through this segregation of genders that the show perpetuates societal norms that support heteronormative culture and result in gender inequalities.

Gender roles are a set of societal norms that dictate the different types of behavior which are generally considered acceptable for people based on their actual or perceived sex or sexuality. In the graphic novel “Fun Home: Old Man, Old Artificer” by Alison Bechdel and the story “Shiloh’ by Bobbie Ann Mason the main characters switch gender roles. These stories use irony to convey the gender roles men and women are supposed to have; however Old Man, Old Artificer reveals what happens when you try to cover up your secret by switching gender roles while “Shiloh” reveals that changing gender roles can cause a marriage to end.

As a female Television, Radio & Film student in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, I encounter gender as it pertains to the communications and media industries every day. According to the Fall 2017 census provided by the university, the entire student body (undergraduate, graduate, and law students) is 52.5% female and 47.5% male. On the other hand, the Newhouse student body is roughly 60% female and 40% male, but it has not always been that way. Through the following photos, I am going to examine how gender affects Newhouse students and faculty in Television, Radio & Film department by exploring the past, present, and future of the school.

Blee, Kathleen M., and Ann R. Tickamyer. "Racial Diffences in Men's Attitudes about Women's Gender Roles." ProQuest Research Library [ProQuest]. Springer Science & Business Media, July 2010. Web. 17 May 2016.

The narration in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home can be categorized as a significant neo-detective one in many ways. Like every detective story, a suspicious death is deriving the whole narrative, but in a fantastically fresh form. There is a mysterious home, and the mystery lies in the minds and secrets of its residents. The significance of this novel lies in the fact that the narrator is one of the main suspected criminals. The novel is psychologically attentive, witty, with wonderful techniques of psychological observations. Unlike the traditional detective stories, this novel does not offer a startling denouement, however, it brings about a deep understanding of gender which is quite unique in its kind. The uniqueness lies

There are many differences between the way conflict theorist and symbolic interactionist view the issue of gender and housework.Conflict theorist focuses on the conflict between married couples in a household.Conflict theorist believes that the conflict in marriage stems from power, who holds the power in the household, and who wants to hold the power in the household.Generally, men have always held most the power in the household, but that is starting to change. In today's Amercian society the wives are starting to control more of the household decisions, such as financial decisions and weekend activities.Samples have shown that in today's household forty-three percent of wives make the decisions, while just twenty-six percent of husbands

Gender roles are determined by both societal culture and the result of biological makeup. Media as an impact on the decision of what your role will be in society. Your decision on what you want to be is formed through the span of grown and observing what happens in society. Your biological makeup can also guide what you gender role is because it categorizes you into male or female.

“House M. D.” is a medical drama about a very unique diagnostician, Dr. House, and his team of doctors who solve medical cases where other doctors fail. “House” is a procedural show, every episode starts with a person getting sick and by the end of the episode Dr. House has deducted what is causing the illness. Even though the show feels like a light hearted detective show with semi-frequent sarcastic humor provided by Doctor House, the characters in the show develop throughout the series. When using gender theory to analyze the characters on “House”, a dramatic difference in gender roles is discovered when new characters are added to the show in season four. This dramatic shift between the original characters and the characters added is the

When “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written women and men were not viewed as equals in society. The historical context of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is revealed through minor characters in the short story and what they do. John, the narrator’s husband is a physician; in addition, the narrator’s unnamed brother is also a physician. In contrast Jennie, the narrator’s sister-in-law is a housekeeper and takes care of the narrator, during her stay at the house. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is revealed that gender roles played a major role in society; gender roles were an actual issue before the 1800’s; and there are also critical essays to support that gender roles do play a part in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

The topic of gender roles is a subject that has been discussed and argued upon for several years, regarding the depiction and expectations of what it means to be a man and, conversely, what it means to be a woman. Along with the topic comes what and how society defines masculinity and femininity. Society has given men the title of being masculine due to the reflection of  dominance, strength, aggressiveness, independence , and the use of interpersonal skills. Whereas society has given females the title of being feminine for having the qualities of being vulnerable, modest, dependent, and delicate. The definitions for both genders follow behind the depiction and expectation on how one may act, whether male or female. A male wants to appear

When I was a little girl, my neighbors and I would always be outside until our parents called us in for dinner. We would be playing football, riding our bikes, playing gas station and other games you played when you were little. Even when I was younger we were all in a stereotype of what we could and not do because of the gender roles placed on each one of us. Society has told us that we need to play with the toys that they label as appropriate for your gender. That is why we see even at younger ages the commercials on the television socializes you into what a girl should play with and what a guy should play with which puts us in the gender roles that we have in society. The boy toys were the action figures, blue colored, and more violent. While the girl toys were pink, sparkly, and mostly dolls. When I was younger sometimes I wasn’t able to hang out with the boys at recess for they would say it’s a boy sport and you are a girl. Looking back now, I realize that these boys at such a young age was putting me into a category of being weak and more sensitive. We see this every day, girls being labeled as a group of being more nurturing and sensitive and boys being more masculine. This can be contributed to the fact that as we were younger we grew up with specific gendered toys that could have impacted our life into how we label each other even today.