Sociology: Mass Media's Effect on Social Gender Roles

Sociology: Mass Media's Effect on Social Gender Roles

People at an early age learn the difference in the social gender roles that exist in our culture by watching the mass media, thus creating the blueprint that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Some of these roles projected by the mass media, namely advertisements, are made to intentionally influence the individual to behave in the stereotypical way and have the stereotypical wants of their gender. There are also the subliminal messages in our media that occur by having a certain gender do an activity in order to label it to the gender. Even unintentionally but though traditional views, people have influenced the media and unknowingly educated the next generation of these traditional views that they are expected to play. Also the social gender role portrayed is constantly changing to a more unrealistic standard, causing an increase of medical and mental illnesses associated with creating this ideal image. All these tend to provide more of a negative image, lower standards and many restrictions of what people can and cannot do depending on their gender. Advertisements and commercials though play one of the largest roles of known gender labeling.

Advertisement can be found everywhere in our society, making it nearly impossible to walk a single block without seeing a company logo. Many companies target children since they are easily influenced into buying the product and continue to buy the product into adulthood. Toys in most retail stores are one of the most gender segregated areas. It%u2019s common to find toys targeted for girls like Barbie and other dolls in one isle while toys targeted to boys like GI Joes and other action figures in another. Assigning a certain gender to a certain toy trains and enforces the idea that girls should like dolls and have a more nurturing nature while boys should like action figures and be more aggressive and adventurous. Commercials play a role in what defines a toy to a certain gender, even if it isn%u2019t very evident and has a more of a subliminal effect. The birth of the modern gamming industry is a very good example of how something that began as gender neutral developed into a male activity.

Before the Atari gamming system was released in 1972, the video game industry consisted of gender neutral games such as pong but when Atari released with games such as asteroids, centipede, tempest, they produced several commercials depicting males of several ages playing the system and soon after video games were classified as male games. After this to see females playing video and arcade games were rarer since it is taboo to have females play with male toys. Also as the gamming industry developed, it enforced the idea that video games are more of a male toy by repeating within the game the idea that males are adventurous, brave and heroic through having the main character of games male. It also started promoting the idea within males that females are side characters that need your help, protection, be saved and were scantly clad. Nintendo once addressed this stereotypical imaging in their 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System game, Metroid, where the lead character Samus Aran was in fact a female but that wasn%u2019t revealed until the player completed the game. The idea of having the main character a female is still a rare occurrence in the video game industry and to this day and Samus%u2019s gender continuously gets mistaken for as male because she displays traits that are considered male traits rather then what we consider female traits.

What traits belong to what gender is also defined by the media. Traits that involve cooking, cleaning or housework are usually shown with a woman doing them; commercials for products like Mr. Clean rarely display anyone but females using the product. Also if males are shown using the product it%u2019s usually done comically with the female later correcting the male on how to use it or with the message that males are incompetent in these fields. On the other hand traits that involve more activity, carriers or leadership tend to be shown with a man, like commercials for sport gear or for a new medicine which will usually feature a male doctor. Commercials aren%u2019t the only way the media is reinforcing these views, the music industry has always had hand in the definition gender roles.

With the growing rap genre, music videos influence gender roles by commonly displaying several female dancers, sexually dancing around the male singer as if he owns and controls them. This tells young girls that it%u2019s okay, or that it%u2019s expected, that when you dance you should dance seductively and %u2018show your stuff%u2019 to men. Also it tells males that it%u2019s normal and ideal to have a harem of females. Many young adults idolize the music stars in these videos and imitate their style in dancing, promoting male dominance and idea of females acting more sexually in a submissive role. This labeling is not restricted to the music industry but can be found within the movie and television one as well.

Similar to the toys, romances and %u2018chick flicks%u2019 are geared for females while action and horror are geared for males. This label comes from three sources; friends, family and the movie industry. Friends and family will tell you the labels but the labels original came from the characters and traits that are shown in the movie. Super heroes and super villains tend to be males since they display the characteristics we deem as male. They are strong, have jobs, hold a leadership role and have the story revolve around them. All these are common images of what males are expected to be. The same idea applies to romances that show more of a sensitive and emotional side, which is associated with women and how they should be like. Media doesn%u2019t only present the roles and ideas but continually enforce the same labels in almost every aspect of life to the point that people don%u2019t even notice.

On the boxes of children%u2019s cereal, there are usually an animated character that serves as the product%u2019s mascot. Fruit Loops has Toucan Sam, Frosted Flakes has Tony the Tiger, Magic Charms has Lucky the Leprechaun, Rice Krispies has Snap, Crackle and Pop but do you notice a relationship growing among these characters beyond the fact that they are cartoons. They are also all male. Even the unnamed Trix rabbit is male, since our society is trained to respond better to a male character and expect to see more male characters than female. A lead cause for males to be shown more in media addressed to children is because of the saying %u201Cboys will be boys%u201D, which allows male characters to have more of a childlike attitude on life and promot the idea that men should be very carefree unlike women who tend to grow more mother-like. Also this is displayed in many cartoons like Darkwing Duck where the majority of characters are adult males. What is also interesting is the wide spectrum of roles men can play on television and in movies compared to females.

Males not only can be childlike but they also can represent a sense of seriousness and leadership, which can be seen when you watch the news. Although many news stations now try to have an equal amount of males and female anchors, male anchors are more commonly found and in the case of a co-ed partner ship they tend to lead. This enforces the idea that men are the leaders while women are the followers. Another field that supports this is politics. Most politicians are male and Canada has never had an elected female prime minister, giving off the impression that women are unable to lead the nation since they do not have the ability or strength to run it well. In many fields this is also the case and although it%u2019s not as plainly obvious as it once was, the message it sends out is still the same.

Idea that males are those with carriers unlike females is a common one when you look at an average day of television. Although females tend to slightly out number males in nature, males out number females on television and when females are displayed they tend to be younger then males. When shown males are more likely to be displaying a carrier than females, which gives off the impression that males are suppose to have jobs while for females it%u2019s not important, if needed at all. Also the more dominance in a carrier males are shown to have like firemen, lumberjack and policemen; make females less interested in these fields since like the boys toys, they are told it%u2019s unnatural to like this and would risk being segregated if they do. It%u2019s that fear of being unlike the others and not accepted that makes people follow the gender roles presented to them on television. But is what is presented normal, lopsided or unreal?

Society is trained to be more accepting to heavier men then women since we display them more in television and movies. In the show The Sopranos, the actor James Gandolfini who plays Tony Soprano is a heavyset man but no one addresses his weight in a negative way or cry out against it. On the other hand when famous talk show host Oprah Winfrey gains a substantial amount of weight or an amount similar to Mr. Gandolfini%u2019s, there are outcries in disgust, name-calling and it%u2019s greatly frown down upon. People then start speculating on %u2018what must be wrong with her%u2019 because of the weight and demand she returns to the ideal image of what females should be, skinny. This image that fat females have a problem as to oppose to fat males are brought on by the fact that there are more fat males displayed on television to tell society that it is normal and accepting. There is a list of fat actors on wikipedia.org naming forty-eight fat actors, not including the more modern actors like Drew Cary, while a list of fat actresses are no where to be found. So by more exposure to the idea that men can be fat, people perceive that as acceptable and carry these views into society by treating fat males better then their female counterparts. Both music videos along with the movie industry are enforcing the idea that desirable women are thin while men must be buff, causing an increase of people doing harm to their bodies in order to achieve this.

There has been an increase of eating disorders over the years and more then half of teenage women are or think they should be on a diet. It%u2019s growing common to hear of actresses with eating disorders, Mary-Kate Olsen being a more recent name when she went for help to treat anorexia. It%u2019s no surprise though when you look at what the media%u2019s standards for what a female should be. A Barbie doll is usually 6 feet with a size four dress size and an average store mannequin is also 6 feet with a size six. Compare that to the average woman whose 5%u20194 with a dress size ranging from eleven to fourteen and it is obviously a recipe for disaster. Also it%u2019s because of the idea that females should be thin and not males explain why 90% of eating disorders happen to females. Now the standard has grown to an unrealistic standard that photo manipulation and airbrushing must be done on photos since it%u2019s near impossible for a human to achieve the physical ideal that we still continue to expect. Social gender roles provided by the media effect not only our mental but physical state which can be very dangerous when given the wrong image.

So the role that people play in accordance to their gender starts from childhood and only continues to grow as society constantly tries to fit with the image the media presents to as normal. This label is enforced so many ways in everyday life that many no longer notice or realize that this is occurring and that they are in fact influenced by it. By following these roles though we have not only caused stereotypes, denied ourselves of what we would want to do but also harm to ourselves because of the social gender roles. What is needed is for society to start displaying a better image, a positive image for the next generation to grow up and into so that we can curve this downward spiral of standards and unreal expectations for the genders.

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