The Amazing Race: Gender Stereotypes

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.

For thousands of years, established gender roles have been a part of our society. Women are commonly known as sensitive, emotional, or passive. On the contrary, men are described as rational, competitive, independent, or aggressive. Believing women are more emotional than men is stereotyping. However, the stereotype is not entirely untrue. Development of gender roles is often conditioned more by environmental or cultural factors than by hereditary or biological factors. The development of gender roles between men and women involves the inference of peer community of each gender, the communication style of male and female and the intimacy or connection level of men and women.

It is very well known to all that media is a big part of society today. It influenced how we see ourselves and the world to some extent. There are different types of media that is offered today, for example: TV, movies, radio, and newspapers. Within the different forms of media, women and men are represented in a certain way, all with different characteristics. In this essay, I will argue that there is similar gender stereotypes presented in the shows Modern Family and Every Body Loves Raymond, and how they differ from the show Full House.

Have you ever been told to sit still and look pretty? Well, a protagonist, Squeaky in the short story, "Raymond's Run" by Toni Cade Bambara has. All her life, her mother has been pestering her to “act like a girl for a change.”Pg#31 Line#178 The main characters in “Raymond's Run” are Squeaky (a 10-year-old girl) and Raymond, (a 12-year-old mentally disabled brother).”Sit Still Look Pretty” and “Raymond's Run” have a connection because Squeaky does not want to wear makeup and big fluffy bows and dresses. “Sit Still Look Pretty” is about a girl doing whatever she wants to do. Have you ever been told to sit still look pretty?, just like Squeaky.

Reality television contains fictional aspects that allow producers to manipulate situations that appear to be “real” on screen. In order to keep their characters interesting and easily recognizable throughout the season, a show must clearly establish heroes, villains and supporting characters to keep their audience coming back for more (Tyree, 2011, p. 395). This involves the heavy use of racial stereotypes in their shows because it allows for quick character development as well as cheap entertainment. The way a particular race or culture is represented on reality television can adversely affect the way society views that

modern era, highlighting shifts in masculine gender identity, the negative social impact of reality television

What once started as every day, regular people appearing on television shows have now morphed into celebrities and want to be celebrities competing for attention and doing almost anything to receive it on primetime television. The genre of television, which was once jumpstarted by the appeal of relatable people, who could be the viewers’ next door neighbors, being featured has since disappeared and been replaced by a monstrosity that does not accurately portray reality and often stereotypes people (Huff). One specific group that has been targeted by what reality television has morphed into is women. The new version of reality television is specifically adequate at encouraging gender culture, the set of behaviors or practices associated with masculinity and femininity (Huff). Reality television enforces gender roles and negatively impacts feminism in today’s society. Reality television sexualizes women, portrays them as dependent on and less superior to men, and exemplifies them as dramatic, catty, and often only as homemakers. The portrayal and stereotyping of women on reality television is demoralizing and can be described as “the contemporary backlash against feminism” (“Reality TV”). These false and demeaning stereotypes are prevailed in all types of reality television shows, making their impact extensive, considering Americans spend one-third of their spare time watching television and of that time sixty-seven percent is spent watching reality television (“Reality

In Western society, the language used has become accustomed to gender stereotyping that is constant in everyday life. In Laurel Richardson’s article, Gender Stereotyping in the English Language, she describes the ways in which the English language is used or can be used to slander a gender, and everyone is exposed to it (Richardson). This language can be used in many contexts and is often used in male sports, it can be used by coaches, parents, spectators and teammates. The language spoken in male sports is often used as

In a script from the Great Divides by Kimmel & Aronson, “people of color face far more suspicion from police than do whites, and favored male professor’s benefit from evaluation, that they are smarter and knowledgeable while comparatively favored female professors tend to be evaluated as nice” Kimmel (2014).

The judges mostly look at the girl’s personality. At the beginning of the pageant, each contestant gives the judges a bio about themselves; with this, judges base their questions off of the contestant’s answers. According to Taylor Jobin, “Pageants mock women's intelligence by asking impossible questions” (Taylor Jobin). This is not true for each question asked in this competition is based on the contestant bio. The bio may have information about the contestant’s recent vacation so the judge would ask in the interview “what was your favorite part about visiting Niagara Falls.” Another article by Rita Panahi says that they ask political questions only insulting people's intelligence and it fools nobody. A book about this specific competition

Every little girl dream is to win a pageant for their mother or father, but what if they don’t win. Girls from ages 4-8 have very emotional when it comes to winning or when their parents put a lot of pressure on them to win. I think parents should let the kids decide whether they would like to join a pageant for the fun of it. Even though girls like to dress up, put on make-up, and have fun doing talents that are unique, their parents would like to embrace their personality to the world. I think little girls have feelings and they can get hurt in pageants because of their make-up, dresses, and sometimes talents.

Gender stereotyping is used in media to build up and magnify character traits and bring humor to situations. Keeping that in mind stereotypical characters portrayed in popular movies and television shows allow viewers to internalize those messages of gender thus making it difficult to argue stereotype behaviors in the real world.

The portrayal of any sub-group of a society in media as an academic subject for discussion in communication and other humanities and social sciences has received much attention and continue to do so. There has been a lot of research on the representation of different classes of people and more specifically, men and women in the media. Gender representations, according to Luyt (2005), takes shape through language or other symbolic forms and offers shared ways of understanding it. Gender representation occurs at an individual, interpersonal and institutional level. The different television genres like talk shows, reality shows, news and advertising and other programmes on radio, and also projections in the print and other electronic media, with

In this paper we shall examine how language in media has influenced the perception of women in

How women are perceived by others, and how women perceive themselves, impacts their leadership roles in the work place. Stereotypes and gender biases are themes women have been dealing with for centuries. How women are perceived by social medial and television have been influencing how they are treated by men, and how they view themselves when it comes to taking a leadership role in their organization. According to Omega Institute (2012), “The rapidly shifting landscape of new media and technology, including reality television and celebrity culture, continue to reinforce gender stereotypes” (p. 1). This leads to men still growing up viewing women as home makers versus bread winner. With more women entering leadership roles in the work place they lack the respect from men due to how these men have grown up to know the typical role of a man and woman. Men tend to feel belittled due to the gender stereotypes seen on television, and this leads to women struggling to succeed as a leader with the lack of support from their male counterparts. Lack of confidence with women in the workplace is also influenced and effected by how women are perceived in social media and television. According to Steele (2005), “Exposure to stereotypic commercials persuade women to avoid leadership roles” (p. 276). As young women grow up seeing the typical gender stereotypes they lack ambitions to break the mold and