Gender Stereotypes In Imagey, By Cathy Guisewite

Text A is a comic strip entitled “CATHY”, created by Cathy Guisewite and published in 1986. The text talks about gender stereotypes and the fact that people become ignorant when it comes to gender. Text B is an extract from a memoir by Shusha Guppy, “The Blindfold Horse, Memories of a Persian Childhood”, and is published in 1988. This text is about gender inequality but as well refers to destiny and determinism vs. free will. Both texts deal with the common theme of gender stereotypes, but each one approaches the theme from a different point of view. The comic mainly focuses on the physical and behavioral characteristics that identify each gender, whether the extract focuses on gender stereotypes from a different view, gender inequality, and also talks about determinism and destiny in life. In Text A, Cathy supports her ideas with a series of sketches and the use of visual images by adding facial expressions to the characters. In contrast, Text B has a more narrative style and passes the message to the audience without the use of direct images. A similarity between the two texts is the date of publication and thus the reader can understand that they have a similar contextual background. However text B, as an extract from a memoir, talks about events that occurred years before the publication.

Text A has the purpose of showing how people viewed specific characteristics as masculine or feminine and sensitizes people that sex stereotyping is compulsory. From the first image we can see that the mother of the baby is not saying yet the baby’s sex in order for it to have the ability to meet people, continue living free, away from stereotypical characteristics that may affect its life. The reaction of the nurse, “I’ll bet it’s a boy”, r...

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...traditional Persian ways and shows that the narrator stands up for the sex equality. The veil is also literally used as a symbol to hide women’s beauty and highlight their feeling of being less towards the society. At both texts there has been carefully selected word choice to relay the message. This word choice is basically feminized for the description of the women and hence, we can understand that both writers are feminists and they have the similar target audience.

To conclude, women nowadays have a more advanced and sophisticated role in society although the sex stereotypes continue to exist and societies’ attitudes change towards gender roles. The contrast between a comic with an extract from a memoir which share a common theme, provides us with information about the different attitudes that cultures have towards gender stereotypes and especially towards women.