Humans are not born with a label, they are taught to adhere to certain principles after suffering judgement from others. It is often found that gender is a barrier that prevents humans from experimenting. One finds that he or she cannot partake in an activity in fear of being judged and labeled. The poem Bedecked by Victoria Redel criticizes people’s judgement on her son, as he does not conform to societal standards. Gender and their associated stereotypes are presented in the poem through mundane items, purposeful diction, and the the motif of jewels.
To begin, the poem presents gender and their associated stereotype with items usually linked to one gender. As the poem opens Redel addresses her sons “scarlet nails” that are decked with “rings’ and “jewels.” As nail polish and jewelry are typically feminine items, one can sense the challenge in Redel’s tone as she describes her son wearing them. Additionally, Redel presents the items “a truck with a remote that revs” and “Hot wheels” to introduce items that generally young boys own. These toys are described since society would prefer her son to play with such toys rather than to “love the glitter.” Thus, gender stereotypes are presented in mundane items that typically the opposite sex does not experiment with. This interaction is looked down upon by others, but Redel is
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unable to place those same judgements on her son and rejects them instead. Another way Redel presents gender and their associated stereotypes in the poem is through her diction.
In the first stanza Redel’s usage of “sports” does not literally translate to an athletic sport, but it does connotate it, as a sport is normally a male pastime. The diction of “pink” also alludes to a gender stereotype, as pink is usually a color that symbolizes femininity and delicateness. However, Redel uses the word in her son’s description to imply that her son does not need to heed to such “rules.” Ergo, Redel molds her language to present common gender stereotypes that she feels her son should not have to
obey. A last method Redel uses to present gender stereotypes in the poem is through the motif of the word jewels. Rather than varying her vocabulary, Redel repeats the word jewels throughout the essay to imply that her son is also fragile and precious like a jewel. Jewels are objects of monetary value, but in this poem, jewels represent the value of Redel’s son to her. Her love for him is unwavering and unhindered despite all the judgements others may pass on him. She compares him to a“rainbow” which gives off “shining true color[s]”. Despite his interests, she knows her son to be genuine, good person. The common adage, ‘a gem of a person’, can be used to describe Redel’s son. It is possible that Redel paralleled the use of the word gem and jewel in her poem to hint at this. The use of ‘jewel’ as a motif emphasizes the pristine character of Redel’s son, which remains untainted despite what others may think. Throughout the poem Bedecked, Redel challenges common gender stereotypes found in society. She uses what are typically feminine symbols and diction to describe her son, while questioning why those items are categorized as such. Despite the qualifications others may have for what others consider to be ‘boyish’, Redel’s belief in her son’s virtuous character is steadfast, which is shown through her consistent use of the motif “jewel” to describe him. Ultimately, her poem is a retort against all those who may judge her son for blending the rigid barrier between genders.
... she is indeed angered and fed up at the fact that there is a stereotype. The way in which she contradicts herself makes it hard for readers to understand the true meaning or point to her poem, the voice was angry and ready for change, yet the actions that the individual was participating in raised questions of whether or not he actually fit the stereotype.
“I have the rages that small animals have, being small, being animal.” is a very clear example of frustration. When the reader reads this line they can make the connection that the writer is trying to say that women are frustrated just like a t-rex that is trying to pick something off a tree with its arms but can’t reach because they are too short. “At your service” is another line that is an example of sarcasm toward the way the author feels toward the tasks she is meant to do. Lastly, “like a book of paper matches” is symbolically portraying that the women are easy to anger and are very fed up with the daily roles they were assigned to when committing to having a family. Jiles uses these tones to make sure the readers understand how the idea of gender roles can and did effect her life as a young women growing up. With that being said, this situation can be tied into the social acceptation of women and how women must fit an accustomed
Throughout the world, there are rudimentary gender characteristics, both physical and psychological, that differentiate a man from a woman. However, some people do not associate themselves with these stereotypical characteristics. Notwithstanding the amount of progress achieved in the past few decades, gender stereotypes are still solemn. Qualities like strength, intellect and sexual deviance are usually associated with men, while qualities like irrational, emotional and insecure are more relevant to women. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Dorothy Livesay’s “The Unquiet Bed”, each poet captures the expression of female
Patricia Young’s poem Boys is a representation of implied heteronormacy in society. Young uses tropes and schemes such as allusion, metaphors and irony to convey the ways in which heterosexuality is pushed onto children from a young age. Poetry such as Boys is a common and effective medium to draw attention to the way society produces heteronormativity through gendered discourses that are typically used to understand sex. Boys does an excellent job at drawing its readers to the conclusion that it is an ironic poem trying to emphasize the over-excessive ways in which we express heterosexuality in daily life.
The poem starts with the line, “This girlchild was born as usual,” which suggests that as soon as a girl is born, society already expects her to learn the role she will soon play in when she hits puberty (1). Thus, showing why we are given dolls as little girls to illustrate how we should act and appear according to society. After we learn all the roles we will soon take part in, “the magic of puberty,” hits and girls immediately begin applying the ideals to their own lives (5). As if this attempt to conform is not enough we have other people telling us we are not to perfect. “You have a great big nose and fat legs,” says a classmate to the girl (6). This type of pressure can slowly but surely destroy even the little confidence women do have in themselves.
In order to fully comprehend the how gender stereotypes perpetuate children’s toys, one must understand gender socialization. According to Santrock, the term gender refers to the, “characteristics of people as males and females” (p.163). An individual is certainly not brought into the world with pre-existing knowledge of the world. However, what is certain is the belief that the individual has regarding him- or herself and life stems from socialization—the development of gender through social mechanisms. For instance, when a baby is brought into this world, his or her first encounter to gender socialization arises when the nurse places a blue or pink cap on the baby’s head. This act symbolizes the gender of the baby, whether it is a boy (blue cap) or a girl (pink cap). At the age of four, the child becomes acquai...
The article was shown to the readers how society classifies children's gender. Base on Eckert and Ginet mention that the people classify the colors the pink is for girls and the blue for boys and here is the evidence “ Colors are so integral to our way of thinking about gender that attributions have bled into our view of the colors so that people tend to believe that pink is more “delicate” color than blue (and not just any blue, but baby blue).( Eckert and Ginet738) In this case, the authors are using this information to make people think about color are representing the girls and boys gender. Also when the babies grow up, they know how to differentiate who is a girl and who is a boy by means of colors that are pink or blue. This affecting that the authors because think many parents teach their children to identify the colors and is a man teaches him the masculine colors that are gree, yellow and blue, and the women teach them colors of women who are pink and purple. However many people do not agree with the authors because the colors are unisex and any gender can use whatever color they
In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler discusses complications with constructions of inner and outer worlds of the body. She argues that “internalization of gender”, as common linguistics describes it, is a part of the heterosexual hegemonic binary of gender conformity which distinguishes inner and outer worlds. Gender, in the commonly accepted model, is innate and through a process of bringing out the inner gender is expressed. Butler proposes, instead, that “the gendered body is performative” and “has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality” (173). Thus, gender does not exist within a person, a part of the body itself, but is a performance constructed through many displays. Gender is not explicitly connected to identity because it is not internal but rather on the body. Butler says that drag “reveals the distinctness of those aspects of gendered experience which are falsely naturalized as a unity through the regulatory fiction of heterosexual coherence. In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself – a...
For a long time pink has been associated with femininity, which gives us the underlying assumption that girls are sweet, gentle, and delicate because that is what pink has come to represent in our society. Yet, the colours used in the toys meant for boys are black and blue which are seen as tough and aggressive. Coincidently, sweet, gentle and delicate is how society sees girls and how they believe they should act when they become women. Furthermore, tough and aggressive is how we want the men to be in our society. Critical sociology looks to gender as a competition where one gender is
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender an individual is pushed to conform to social expectations of his/her group.
At first glance, the poems The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake, and Barbie Doll, by Marge Piercy appear to have no tangible similarities. However, upon further analysis and interpretation, they can be seen as somewhat akin. In these two poems, the harsh treatment of children, the use of imagery, and children’s self-image in the poems are comparable. The differences between the two poems include the time period in which they were written, the background of the characters, and the characters’ reactions to the problems that they are faced with. Although the surface level information in the poems Barbie Doll and The Chimney Sweeper is easy to contrast, if one dives a little deeper,
As a child, our toys were not exactly as gender neutral as earlier times, but also were not as gender stereotypic as the toys in today’s time. The fact that everyone eventually comes into contact with buying toys whether you have kids or you have a friend or family member who have kids which makes this an important topic. Eventually, everyone has to buy a child a present. Would it bother you that all toys are either pink or blue and there is no in between? Or does sticking to what your child is already familiar with and knows the more ideal option when it comes to gender stereotyping with children’s toys? Authors James Delingpole and Eleanor Muffitt both do a good job at arguing both sides to this issue. Although both authors provide valid points throughout each article, about gender stereotyping with toys, James Delingpole clearly was more effective in persuading the audience because he used all three elements; ethos, logos, and pathos to support his idea.
The reason for this is, where with the girls there was one card girls who did not like “girly” things, the same thing can not be said of the boys’ cards. The boys cards had nothing but sports, superheroes, and other “cool” “boy” things. Although there were a few cards with animals on them, they were not like the ones for girls were. Where with the animals on the girls’ cards were puppies, and kittens, the ones of the boys’ were dinosaurs. Again this is a very wrong and sad representation of boys this is because it does not represent the boys who may not like superheroes, sports, or dinosaurs. Again this is due to the fact that book pointed out, that when a baby is born is it’s a girl, she gets pink and dolls, but if it’s a boy he gets sports and bright colors. However, it’s mentioning again that even if the parents try to avoid these stereotypes, there is no avoiding them. However this is due to the fact that most products, such as toys, and even food in some cases, are directed for each sex. Some examples of this are again in toys or girls will get dolls, and ponies. Where boys get legos, action figures, and nerf guns. However, it should be noted that there are some legos that a directed at girls, but these sets are “girly.” But again this is unfair because it is stereotyping the boys into the category that all boys must like sports superheroes, and dinosaurs. In doing this unfair stereotyping of boy, it makes it next to impossible if not impossible for parents to find a card for their son who like puppies, or who like disney princesses. Again this is society forcing the saying “snips and snails, and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys are made of”
Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.