Pretty Wom An American Romantic Comedy

​​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.

The gender of a person is the masculine or feminine attributes of that individual with respect to the psychological and biological role in society. (Magar, 2009) A gender role can be defined as the way that a person lives in society with respect to its lifestyle. It can be argued that over time the major differences between men and women’s gender roles have faded. In the past traditional roles have been based in their society by their biological orientation. (Magar, 2009) Gender roles can also be described as the behavior and attitudes that are expected of men and women in a society. (Faqs.org, 2011) Although different cultures impose different expectations, many cultures have the same basic gender roles.

Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) in Pretty Woman comes from a small town in Georgia, and works as a prostitute on the streets of Hollywood to support herself. Although Vivian's social position is very low, she has a strong sense of personal dignity and independence. Even though sometimes she have to stand by the street with empty stomach to wait for clients, Vivian and her friend Kit still

In society the purpose of gender roles is to group people into two opposite categories, men and women. These categories however, encourage toxic masculinity and gender inequality. In movies or books characters tend to fall into one category, when in reality most people don’t fit into just one. Shakespeare explores the idea of conformity and categorization in Macbeth. In Macbeth, the characters conformity to gender roles are the root of all their problems.

What is gender? The answer to that is not so simple. "Gender is what culture makes out of the ‘raw material' of biological sex," (Unger and Crawford, 1995). Also, there is a difference between what is gender identity and what is a gender role; a difference which seems to be even more difficult to differentiate between than the words "gender" and "sex". Media and other parts of our culture seem to believe they know the difference, yet up until a certain period in time, the same stereotypical characters were portrayed and used as role models for others in most media. Women characters being the helpless victims, while the strong men would come to save them (including

What is gender? The answer to that is not so simple. “Gender is what culture makes out of the ‘raw material’ of biological sex,” (Unger and Crawford, 1995). Also, there is a difference between what is gender identity and what is a gender role; a difference which seems to be even more difficult to differentiate between than the words “gender” and “sex”. Media and other parts of our culture seem to believe they know the difference, yet up until a certain period in time, the same stereotypical characters were portrayed and used as role models for others in most media. Women characters being the helpless victims, while the strong men would come to save them (including television

Gender can also be seen as just being a male or a female. For instance, your role in society. In the book Wicked this can be displayed by the

The best description for the movie came from Ellie Woodward when she described this movie as the “PRETTY WOMAN follows the love story of a hooker with a heart of gold, Vivian (Julia Roberts), and a stoic, detached, wealthy business mogul, Edward (Richard Gere), who treats all facets of life like a business merger. Vivian is a charismatic, "innocent" prostitute looking to make ends meet. Driving along the Hollywood strip one night, Edward stops and asks Vivian for directions. She drives him back to his hotel and stays the night. Bemused by her company, Edward hires her for the week at a rate of $3,000. Predictably, their relationship develops into more than that of employer/employee.” (Woodward) This predictable story could have been different if Vivian had been like her prostitute friends and had been hooked on drugs when Edward picked her up.

Pretty Woman is a movie about a prostitute that goes from “rags to riches,” when she meets a well-off man. There is a specific scene in the beginning of the movie in which Edward, a wealthy business man, has a business proposition for the working girl he just spent the previous night with, Vivian. He asks her to work for him for the week that he is in Los Angeles. She replies by saying “If you’re talking 24 hours a day, it's going to cost you.” She tells him that for the full week it will cost him $4,000, and then he counters and says he will pay $2,000, which she counters by saying she wants to be paid $3,000, and that is the price they agree upon. She then later says “I would’ve stayed

How does gender affect our lives? Gender refers to the personal sexual identity of an individual, in spite of the person's biological and outer sex. Gender plays an extremely significant and important role in shaping the way we think and act towards others in life. In the film “About a Boy” the audience meet a variety of characters that adhere or challenge their gender. Throughout my speech I will be discussing Fiona, Marcus and Will’s character and how they represent their gender.

1. Gender is being male or female, but in a social sense instead of a biological one, like sex. Gender roles are the expectations that society creates for each gender to act like and behave. In the film Parenthood, there were many different examples of gender roles. One of the major one examples that stood out to me was in the instance of Helen and her two children. At the start of the film, Helen let her son, Gary, walk out of the house being disrespectful and go do whatever he wanted, however she told her daughter, Julie, that there were people coming over later tonight and she needed her to help clean the house. Another major example of gender roles that stood out to be was the constant showing of the woman having to take care of the

Gender can be analyzed by factors sex and gender. Sex is defined by the physical characteristics between males and females such as genitals and physical differences, like build and height. Gender refers to stereotypes patterns of behavior and expectations, for example in the movie women are seen as slaves and sexual objects and the men are controlling masculine leaders. Constructing gender solely on the expectations of society and what is viewed as normal. In the film expectations

Gender is a learned social construction on what you do. It is a cultural system based on the binary opposition of men and women but there are also variations

An individual can either identify themselves with a subculture or social group which results in them having diverse gender roles.

The term ‘gender’ was coined by John Money in 1955: “Gender is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself/herself as having the status of a boy or man, girl or woman, respectively” (Coleman and Money, 1991, 13). In