Gender Identity In Doc Mcstuffins

Introduction

Children develop their first sense of self at around age four, when they develop metacognition. (Berk, 2006) In pursuit of their self, they start to develop personal identities, informing their likes and dislikes as well as their disposition. Although children are born into a certain sex, they do not immediately develop a sense of gender. Their gender forms at the same time as their sense of self, by observing their outside environment. But even before the child understands their sense of self, they are already placed into gender specific play from around age 2 (Zosuls, 2007).

The creation of an identity involves the child's understanding of the public disposition of the gender normalities, and the certain gender categories that

then are displayed in the child's mind (Ruble). Current social belief supports gendered colors. The color pink, in our current society emphasizes femininity, and females from birth are given pink as a sign of their gender. Girls display the phenomenon of wanting to wear pink frilly dresses (Ruble, 2010) showing how gender based that one article of clothing is. The male gender is shown to lean towards more “masculine” toys and ideals, such as playing with trucks and wearing the color blue (Ruble, 2011).
As children develop their sense of self, there are many environmental influences. In the 21st century children are increasingly exposed to media, causing it to be a large factor in their source of information about the world. (number from textbook). In addition, there is a significant sex bias in the number of male versus female characters found in the video games and among the way in which the male and female characters were dressed, displaying gender separation. For example, in a study of video games showed that females were portrayed less in lead roles, being displayed 20%. (Beasley, 2009) Females in addition, wore less clothing and wore more vibrant colors. Even in television gender discrepancies are present. Television shows also displays X. (Find a source for this)
The influence I will explore is television and its effect on gender. Exposed to television shows at a young age, children develop their sense of self around what they watch. (Witt, 2000) With the increasing presence of the media, children might be pressured to conform to these stereotypes at younger ages. Television is an important influence on gender biased and gender stereotyped behaviors and attitudes, to developing children this will impact their perception of male and female societal roles (Witt, 2000). Television provides the vector to transport the stereotypes onto the developing child. Boys' leisure preferences became slightly more masculine with age, and for girls, preferences for television shows became more feminine with age from 5 to 13 (Cherney, 2006). Children age 3 typically watch X amount of television per day, whereas at age 7, children watch X amount of television per day. The increase of the amount of television allows for the increase of gender specific norms as the child ages. Exposed through the television shows, the child has formed a sense of what gender displays what in our current society. Do I need more? If so, should it be from the Textbook?

Methods & Results
In order to make a fair assessment I watched four episodes Doc McStuffins, a series targeted for three to seven year olds, and four episodes of Handy Manny, targeted for four to eight year olds. When watching the show, I looked for gender markers, such as clothing and color. Should I include my method for data collection?
Doc McStuffins is a television show about a young female black girl, named Dottie who goes by Doc, who cares for living toys. Doc on the show, is the doctor who can fix toys when they need to be repaired. Within the show Doc repairs different toys catering to their needs, and how they had been broken. Doc in the show has a younger brother, Donny, who does not know that the toys are living. Doc is inspired in the show by her mother, Doctor McStuffins, who is a doctor on the show. Doc’s father is a chef, on the other hand, who is not prominent in the show. Doc has one friend named Emmy, who hangs out with her during the day, and Donny has one friend named Luca. Doc’s “clinic” is in her outside playhouse.
In Doc McStuffins, Doc wore dresses for all out of the four episodes, and each time her dress was purple, pink and white.

The stuffed animal dragon, Stuffy, was blue, and he was male. The female hippo assistant, Hallie, was pink, purple and white, also displays a very heavy accent. The male snowman, Chilly, was blue and white. The lamb stuffed doll, Lambie, was pink and very feminine. Throughout Doc McStuffins, there were gender based character attributes displayed on each of the characters and the general landscape of each of the shows. In each episode, there was a toy that was broken and the toy displayed the underlying gender tropes. Doc uses her outside knowledge to diagnose the problems of the toys, and eventually fix them. In Rescue Ronda Ready for Takeoff, there was a female helicopter who was damaged due to a stick. The helicopter as a gender stereotype was given mascara and elongated eyelashes, whereas none of the other characters had this trait. In another episode, when Donny lost, Doc decided that was not right and decided to fix his racecar. In addition, all of the racecars were male and were none of the “feminine colors”. General recurring themes were friendship, help and repair. Doc believes that anything can be fixed and that children should listen to their doctors, using her ability as the lead to display this throughout the

show.
Handy Manny, on the other hand, is a show centered around a male Latino adult named Manny. Manny’s main profession is to fix stuff using his tools who talk and have their own social lives. In the show, the tools Manny uses are presented at an equal level to the people on the show. Pat, is a hammer on the show, who colored blue and is male. Dusty is a saw with a red tip, and is female. Stretch is a tape measure, who is pink and purple and is male. Felipe is a screwdriver and is yellow, and male. Turner is a screwdriver and is blue, and male. Squeeze, is a plier and has a green tip, she also has eyelashes and is female. Rusty is a wrench who is orange with a blue tip and male.
In Handy Manny, Manny always wore a green shirt, blue jeans and a orange and white hat. Hanny would be called by clients for odd jobs and always relied on the support of his tools to get his jobs done. Themes that were present were repair, production and openness. Across all the episodes, Manny’s tools helped him out whenever necessary, and always feel they can fix the situation. There was a common recurrence of openness, that the tools would do whatever was needed of them at the time and were open to any course of action.
The reason these two shows were chosen was because they were both about similar topics with different gendered main characters. In Doc McStuffins, Doc fixes all the toys with the help of her stuffed toys. In Handy Manny, Manny uses his tools to repair and fix places or things people hire him to do. Do I need anything else?

Discussion/ Analysis (NEEDS MORE)
In each of the shows, there were underlying gender stereotypes based on the colors that each gender wore and the locations that the gender was in.

In Doc McStuffins, the main character, who was a female wore only pink and purple and used predominantly pink and purple things. This reinforces the stereotype that girls only seem to enjoy pink and purple. But one thing was the same, that each reinforced basic underlying stereotypes of what males and females should like. For example, in Doc McStuffins the boys were expected to like racecars, trucks and blue, whereas the girls liked pink and dolls. This supports the stereotype that girls enjoy wearing a pink frilly dress, as documented by Ruble in her examination of girls and their phenomenon with pink frilly dresses. Doc by using pink and purple items covered in glitter, reinforces the stereotype that girls only enjoy such items. In order to seem more realistic, like the outfits Emmy wears that are jeans and a blue shirt, Doc could try changing up her dress colors, if not wearing shorts depending on the weather in the show. This would imply and reinforce the ideal that girls do not only enjoy pink but can enjoy all colors, countering the

stereotype.
There was a large difference between how often the males and females were put into the lead roles in the series. In Handy Manny, the leads were mainly male, whereas in Doc McStuffins the leads were a mix of female and male. The leads in Handy Manny were mainly male, reflecting that only men can complete jobs that required tool work. In Handy Manny it was assumed that the girls didn’t do the hard work, but only did the helping on small jobs. In order to combat this stereotype, there could be a female lead who could help Manny in his repair jobs. Although the hardware store owner was a female, she did not seem to be working on the “hard jobs” only working idly. In addition, she wore a pink shirt and pink shoes, displaying the stereotype that girls do indeed enjoy pink more than boys. The effect of this on the child watching is that the child may start to develop ideas of gender specific colors and decide to shy away from liking or wearing certain things because of their color.
In Doc McStuffins the leads were a mix of female and male. In addition, the gender roles were not stereotypical, since the main character’s mother was a doctor, not typically portrayed on television for females in cartoons. Thus, Dottie (Doc), tries to be a doctor just like her mom, displaying that females can pursue any job they want. Girls who watch the show will feel more empowered to go into a field of medicine since they have seen a female who can be a doctor on their television show. In addition, Doc’s father is a chef. A common normality is that females are the housewives who cook, this shows that both males and females can do the cooking. Since children develop a sense of gender at age four, by limiting the stereotypes aimed for kids at age 3, the child might not be placed into a specific set of what it means to be female or male. The effect of this on the child watching is that the child may start to develop ideas of gender specific jobs as they continue to watch the show. +++socio-emotional development of the child.
Handy Manny and Doc McStuffins were chosen for their similar storylines, as they both are “fix it” shows. In each of the shows, the main character is able to use his/her knowledge and fix the problem. In addition, both the shows seemingly portrayed the underlying gender tropes displayed in clothing.
In consideration of the plot lines of the show, it would be beneficial for the television company to display less color associated with typical gender norms. For example, in past shows such as Blues Clues, the main character, a female was blue, the polar opposite of what a female should be. I was hired to find out how gender stereotypes were displayed in children's television shows, I found that each show associated a color with a certain gender. The benefits of reducing gender stereotyping in children’s television shows is to allow the child to develop their own sense of individualization based solely on individual preferences rather than being taught to like something over another.
Since children do not yet have an informed sense of identity at age three, when they watch Doc McStuffins, the implications of these tropes onto the child, will force them to associate colors with a certain sex. Thus the exposure to such tropes at a young age provides hr groundwork for identity based off of stereotypes. Should this paragraph be in earlier on?