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The influence of media on views of gender
Effects of media on child development
Impact of media on gender
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Recommended: The influence of media on views of gender
Starting at a young age girls and boys are given a specific category to fit in without giving them a choice to choose what kind of toys they want to play with. Right when the doctor tells the parents about the gender of their child, they immediately start planning a baby shower themed in blue for a boy and pink for a girl. Girls are taught to play with dolls while boys are given cars. The way media separates responsibilities determined by gender is wrong.
In today's society there has been many changes that have taken place. Kids feel more comfortable expressing who they want to be. Boys can play with dolls and girls can play with cars or action figures. Letting a child choose their own identity is the first step to help them
be confident in a world filled with criticism. In our generation women are at the same level men are at. Both men and women can do the same jobs. Teaching kids that women are supposed to be cooking and cleaning while men work and have jobs is not the real situation in today's generation. Carrie Mannino stated a good point by saying that toys should not be gender stamped. Giving a boy cars to play with when he asks for a kitchen set will not change the fact that he finds kitchen sets more entertaining. The author says that media teaches us that a women's worth is determined by how many men want her. Many women experience eating disorders in the process of getting a size zero body. Women should instead work hard to obtain a job that they have always dreamed of. We have not reached the exact point where these differences end, but each year society changes for the better. Women and men now have the right to gay marriage which is a huge step in the positive direction. Soon kids would not have to choose from toys that are based on their gender. The author says that these messages saturate our world, but soon enough these lines of separation will be invisible and kids will be free to choose toys that they enjoy playing with.
Gender role conflicts constantly place a role in our everyday life. For many years we have been living in a society where depending on our sexuality, we are judged and expected to behave and act certain way to fulfill the society’s gender stereotypes. The day we are born we are labeled as either a girl or boy and society identifies kids by what color they wear, pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Frequently, we heard the nurses in the Maternity facility saying things like, “Oh is a strong boy or is beautiful fragile princess.” Yet, not only in hospitals we heard this types of comments but we also see it on the media…
I will not impose “gender specific” toys on them or tell them that it is not acceptable for a boy to play with a baby doll or tell my future daughter that it is not allowed for her to pretend sword fight. My children will be able to decide what they like and what they do not like and I will not allow anyone to decide that for them. This assignment has definitely opened my eyes to the market that is out there stereotyping children without much notice. Taking time to actually look into what is being done with toys and society with children has broadened my understanding and awareness of the impending problem that children are being faced with. I hope that one day we will see an end to gender stereotyping so that my future children will not be forced to feel out of place if they do not identify with a specific feeling or emotion that a boy should have or a girl should have. It sickens me and breaks my heart that things so minuscule such as toys can have such a negative effect on lives, especially on such a young children. This ideology of gender segregation should not be supported or further produced because it is harmful to the children that are directly or indirectly being affected by
The topic of over-generalizing characteristics of a man or woman has become a controversial debate. While both sides have valid points, Monika Bartyzel, a freelance writer who created Girls in Film, a weekly feature on “femme-centric film news and concerns” at theweek.com, argues in her gender stereotype article “Girls on Film: The Real Problem with the Disney Princess Brand” Disney has gone against their own perception of a princess, leaving young girls to believe they are only worth value if they are pink, sparkling and dependent on a man.
Even though our country supports equality in gender, differences still exist. This issue of gender and sexuality of our society has had one of the biggest impacts in my life since I was raised with five brothers. Since birth, I was immediately perceived by my parents as my gender role of girl and daughter. My brothers were given action figures, cars, and guns to play with. I was given the traditional girl toys Barbies, baby dolls and kitchen sets. Of course, I enjoyed my traditional girl toys but it might have been nice to have a choice and be able to have the same toys as my brothers to play with. I eventually concluded that I should be satisfied with whatever toys were given to me by my parents.
Within western culture, gender is assigned through sex assessment which dictates everything individuals should and should not do. Gendered interaction is enforced from birth. Messages of gender and its expectations guide children as they grow, drawing influences from the media, religion, and community. Failure to follow the expectations of an assigned designation can result in children being forced to play with toys and engage in occupations that they do not enjoy to avoid social ridicule and neglect. Some believe that gender is innate while others encourage reformation of gender in hope of a more accepting society. Despite the insistence of the necessity of gender roles for an efficiently run society, traditional gender roles are dangerous
Society cements certain roles for children based on gender, and these roles, recognized during infancy with the assistance of consumerism, rarely allow for openness of definition. A study conducted by Witt (1997) observed that parents often expect certain behaviors based on gender as soon as twenty-four hours after the birth of a child. The gender socialization of infants appears most noticeably by the age of eighteen months, when children display sex-stereotyped toy preferences (Caldera, Huston, & O’Brian 1989). This socialization proves extremely influential on later notions and conceptions of gender. Children understand gender in very simple ways, one way being the notion of gender permanence—if one is born a girl or a boy, they will stay that way for life (Kohlberg 1966). “According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable” (Orenstein 2006). The Walt Disney Corporation creates childhood for children worldwide. “Because Disney are such a large media corporation and their products are so ubiquitous and wide spread globally, Disney’s stories, the stories that Disney tell, will be the stories that will form and help form a child’s imaginary world, all over the world, and that’s an incredible amount of power, enormous amount of power” (Sun). Because of the portrayal of women in Disney films, specifically the Disney Princess films, associations of homemaker, innocence, and dependence are emphasized as feminine qualities for young children. Thus, children begin to consider such qualities normal and proceed to form conceptions of gender identity based off of the movies that portray the very specific and limiting views of women (...
Sure, the rooms that children grow up in are a start, but the color of a room can’t determine how they will act their entire lives. Gender roles are learned in various places, such as school, church, from parents, and on television. As a child, a common game to play is, “House.” It is easy to see that even early on, a little girl knows that she is the mother and stays home to take care of the baby while her husband goes off to work (“List of Gender Stereotypes”). It is believed that these behaviors are majorly learned from parents, but can also be taught through television. Many common t.v. shows highlight typical gender roles within the home, allowing children to believe that it is “normal.” This is not even the extent of where these behaviors are learned- many come from school as well. From an early age kids learn in school what famous men in history are famous for, and what famous women are famous for. Children also learn the typical occupations of men and women in history. Most women that are nurses or teachers, while the men are lumberjacks or politicians. These are just a few examples of how many places children are drowned with information about gender stereotypes, and the pressure there is to follow
“What? A boy playing with Barbie dolls? That’s messed up man. Only girls play with dolls. Everyone knows that!” This is an answer from Cavin, seven years old, when asked what he thought about boys playing with Barbie dolls. Listening to these words can make one realize that even from a young age, children have been strongly impacted by gender through society. According to sociologist James M. Henslin, gender is “the behaviors and attitudes that a society considers proper for its males and females; masculinity or femininity” (280). Throughout time gender has been a way of thinking about what is appropriate of different sex, a term which Henslin defines as “biological characteristics that distinguish females and males, consisting of primary and secondary sex characteristics” (280). Since many years ago society has solidly built characteristics of gender and kept encouraging traditional gender roles to new generations. Toys, a common object which many children play with in the beginning of their lives, is actually an agent of gender socialization that many people take for granted. Through observations at a local toy store, such as Toys R Us, one can recognize how toys reinforce gender roles.
All around the world society has created an ideological perspective for the basis of gender roles. Gender and sex are often times misused and believed to be interchangeable. This is not the case. There are two broad generalization of sexes; female and male, yet there is a vast number of gender roles that each sex should more or less abide by. The routinely cycle of socially acceptable behaviors and practices is what forms the framework of femininity and masculinity. The assigned sex categories given at birth have little to do with the roles that a person takes on. Biological differences within females and males should not be used to construe stereotypes or discriminate within different groups. Social variables such as playing with dolls or
Girls are supposed to play with dolls, wear pink, and grow up to become princesses. Boys are suppose to play with cars, wear blue, and become firefighters and policemen. These are just some of the common gender stereotypes that children grow up to hear. Interactions with toys are one of the entryway to different aspects of cognitive development and socialism in early childhood. As children move through development they begin to develop different gender roles and gender stereotypes that are influenced by their peers and caregivers.
Changes in society have brought issues regarding gender stereotype. Gender roles are shifting in the US. Influences of women’s movement (Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2006) and gender equality movement (e.g., Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)) have contributed to expanding social roles for both genders. Nevertheless, gender stereotypes, thus gender stereotype roles continue to exist in the society (Skelly & Johnson, 2011; Wood & Eagly, 2010). With changes in gender roles, pervasiveness of gender stereotype results in a sense of guilt, resentment, and anger when people are not living up to traditional social expectations (Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2006). Furthermore, people can hold gender stereotype in pre-reflective level that they may
The image of a daycare center exemplifies an area of play and education in one's mind. Here, a child can learn, interact, and revel solely by themselves or with others such as their peers or authority figures. Although child development at a young age is key, subliminal messages are hidden within developmental actions; in a site of early childhood education, indirect and involuntary messages about gender are heard and witnessed on a day-to-day basis that all children, especially infants and toddlers, are susceptible to. Toddlers and infants will recognize what defines girls and boys because of their exposure to gender as seen through the uses of gendered words, like “he” and “she”, or their toys, like dolls for girls and trucks for boys.
Sex role stereotyping and gender bias permeate everyday life. Children learn about sex roles very early in their lives, probably before they are 18 months old, certainly long before they enter school.(Howe, 1). The behaviors that form these sex roles often go unnoticed but their effect is immeasurable. Simple behaviors like: the color coding of infants (blue & pink), the toys children are given, the adjectives used to describe infants (boys: handsome, big, strong; girls: sweet, pretty, precious), and the way we speak to and hold them are but a few of the ways the sex roles are introduced. These behaviors provide the basis for the sex roles and future encouragement from parents and teachers only reinforce the sex roles.
...s can become star athletes, boys can become gourmet chefs and the world will continue to turn. A large amount of emphasis is being placed on superficial worries instead of real issues that face the differences between genders. Let children play with the toys that they want, banning a type of toy based on color or gender will most likely result in making the toy even more desirable in the long run. Children will surprise you, when given several female dolls and a single male doll, instead of forming a happy family oriented play, the child instead draws patterns on all of the dolls with Sharpie and turns them into a nudist tribe living their lives out in the bedroom closet. Children follow the examples set for them in life, ‘a woman who gave her daughter tools, in place of dolls, discovered the child undressing a hammer and singing it to sleep’ (Bennett C. , 2014).
Toys teach children gender stereotypes, develop gender identity, and help them socialize. In a word, playing with toys can be seen as a repetition of children’s future life. Children intuitively prefer the toys that fit their gender needs – boys prefer to play with toy weapon while girls prefer to play with dolls. If a child is deprived of an opportunity to play with toys, he or she ends up with a significant gap in his or her mental development and socialization skills. This is why parents should allow their children play with their favorite