Friday, August 7, 2009

In the words of Newman, children are like “gender detectives”

Young children are often described as sponges. From an early age, they start to observe the world around them and adopt a sense personal identity. In Newman’s “Identity and Inequalities” chapter, he poses the question, “How does one become a male or a female?” and where do “gendered traits and behaviors come from (109)? Take a brief look at commercials, websites, advertisements and catalogs that surround parents and children. Every day, children are being told through the images and messages what gender is and what it may look like. Mostly through social interaction with peers and socialization, they construct themselves as either a boy or girl in their social world. “Decades of research indicate that “girls’ toys” still revolve around themes of domesticity, fashion, and motherhood and “boys’ toys” emphasize action and adventure”” (Newman 112). Imaginary play is one specific area of children’s play; children interact with each other as they use props and create a scenario that models after real life situations. Through an analysis of toys marketed for imaginary play, there is proof that the differences send messages about gender to young children.







This is my pastor’s son, Michael. He is four years old and loves to go to Toys R Us to look at the new toys with his two brothers. Each time he steps foot into the toy store, he will be exposed to sources of gender information. The first imaginary play scenario to focus on is household chores. Michael will have a choice between the weed trimmer and the vacuum cleaner. The online website for Toys R Us includes the vacuum cleaner in both the “boys” and the “girls” section of pretend play. Even though the product is in both gender categories, the image shows a girl doing the vacuuming. Therefore, Michael might assume that vacuuming is a girl’s chore.

“From an early age, they are like “gender detectives,” searching for cues about gender, such as who should and shouldn’t engage in certain activities, who can play with whom, and why girls and boys differ” (Newman 113). The child displayed with the vacuum product is a cue that teaches Michael that he shouldn’t engage in this activity. Instead, the weed trimmer is an activity that he can engage in. Because “boys’ toys” focus on action and adventure, the weed trimmer is for boys. They can use the toy outside the house, on the bushes; it also passes on the idea that holding the power tool is dangerous, hence the goggles, and it requires strength. These images expect men to take care of the house using more “masculine” tools while women are to take care of the house by cleaning and staying inside.


Again, the next set of products defines male and female roles in the house. In the boys’ section of pretend play, there are power tools. Just as the tools suggest, they are powerful, strong, skill and work based. In the girls’ section, there is a kitchen set. Just as Newman described, the kitchen falls under the theme of domesticity and motherhood. The image of a young girl playing with the kitchen set will translate to Michael that girls not only clean, but they also do the cooking. The kitchen is full of colors such as purple, pink, and yellow and blue. But the power tools have colors such as orange, green, blue, red, and black. These subtle differences begin to show Michael his role as a boy is to play with exciting power tools rather than play house. In preschool, many children learn to play with others their age. Imaginary play is powerful because children set up their own roles in everyday situations. Children who start to think that only girls play house will determine the types of interaction between genders.

“On their developmental path, children acquire information from a variety of sources – books, television, video games, the Internet, toys, teachers, other children, other children’s parents, strangers they see on the street” (Newman 108). One of the more significant part of children’s lives is their social world with the peers around them. They spend majority of their time in school than at home with their parents. They spend more time with their peers than with their teachers. According to Newman, socialization is “the way that people learn to act in accordance with the rules and expectations of a particular society” and children start to develop a sense of self through this process” (109). Children go to school to make friends and learn in what ways they are expected to behave in order to make these friends. Through imaginary play, they will learn what behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable. Through simple props such as pots and pans as well as a saw and drill, Michael will learn which ones are labeled for boys and which ones for girls.


The product of the fireman costume is titled as “True Heroes Fireman Action Hero”. In the image, a boy is wearing the fireman outfit. This suggests that firemen are heroes and are to be looked up to. The activity for playing the scenario with the face mask, fire extinguisher and axe is supposed to be full of action and danger. The seriousness of the boy’s face shows young boys that this hero means business and is confident and strong. Let’s take a look at the girls’ product. It is called “Fantasy Vanity” and a young girl sits in front of the mirror, applying make-up and admiring herself. What values of gender does this image portray in contrast to the action hero? Girls are portrayed as delicate people who are vain and spend their time beautifying themselves. This falls under Newman’s theme of fashion. While boys are out fighting risky fires and becoming heroes, girls are sitting in front of a mirror taking care of their faces and dressing up in glamorous outfits. The fantasy vanity mirror is not a product that could be gender neutral. Boys are told they do not put on make-up sitting on a pink and white stool. Children continue to make decisions about what it means to be a male or female.

“In a society structured around and for the interests of men, stereotypically masculine traits (strength, assertiveness, confidence, and so on) are likely to be valued culturally and interpersonally” (Newman 116-117). The traits differentiated between the action hero and the vanity mirror instills values of what society calls the norm to young children. Boys are to adopt the stereotypical masculine traits in order to avoid being called a “sissy”. They learn through socialization, they risk their gender and sexuality identity if they choose to play girl games. “Girls, in general, are given license to do “boy things”” yet boys are ridiculed when they are “suspiciously soft and effeminate” (Newman 116). Therefore, this says a lot about gender values. Softness is a trait girls possess because they are associated with domesticity and motherhood. Society expects boys should be associated with rough and tough play, and avoiding the “girl games”.

The gender roles and values the children learn as they grow up are important in their every day actions and behaviors. The network through which they learn the standards of society’s norms surrounds them in their everyday life. Television commercials, billboards, and peers all help shaping the associations children make with gender. Newman wrote, “Social life is never that simple. Broader values surrounding gender, sexuality, race, and class will always determine how we incorporate those features of our identity into our own self-concept” (143). Children will develop a self-concept when they are accepted by peers and feel they meet up to the social expectations of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Their identity starts when they are born and is nurtured through these values they adopt as they interact with the world around them. Toys R Us is one store that displays gender values and differences in their products marketed towards young boys and girls.

Works Cited
Newman, David M. “Portraying Difference: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Language and the Media.” Identities and Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. NY: McGraw Hill, 2007.

Images
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2329760
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2674703
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3064146
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2310847
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3381129
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2313575

Friday, July 24, 2009

Viva Glam: Is it really all that glamorous as they say?


Advertisements use sexualized body to sell something. Through the mainstream media of television, magazines, and the internet, advertisements are sending strong messages to young girls. In a materialistic society, it is believed that the more you have the better. Adolescents especially want to strive for a better life with better things. If they buy all the new products, they can be sexy and desirable like the models they see, or at least, try and constantly fall short of the changing definition of ideal beauty. The popular upscale cosmetic company M.A.C lures teenage girls to buy their makeup in order to maintain what it means to be feminine through their advertisements. Girls are brought up to believe that makeup will make them look older, hide their blemishes and flaws, and ultimately, to look more beautiful than they usually do. Large billboards of beautiful and sexy women are displayed for girls all over the world to see and believe that they could attain that kind of beauty. Even though some advertisements may not be overtly sexual when compared to others, the less obvious, but repeating sexual messages can be found in the media. Advertisements not only use sex in order to sell their products, they also use sex to sell underlying false messages targeted at young and innocent consumers.

According to Wolf, “the sexual revolution promoted the discovery of female sexuality; “beauty pornography” – which for the first time in women’s history artificially links a commodified “beauty” directly and explicitly to sexuality – invaded the mainstream to undermine women’s new and vulnerable sense of sexual self-worth” (121). Girls’ self-worth and femininity is defined by this beauty that they think will be sexually appealing. The beauty myth is embedded in girls’ heads from constant exposure to messages of what it means to be beautiful and feminine. Every girl is aware of how she looks and advertisers tell them what they can do to attain ideal beauty, which is unattainable even to the models that are photo-shopped and airbrushed. Yet they start to measure themselves to these models and try to find their self worth in how sexy others see their bodies. M.A.C.’s advertisements feature faces of celebrities telling girls to buy their cosmetics to look like them. Their advertisements for their line, Viva Glam, are for selling make-up; but with closer analysis, the body language, modeling and attitude tell a different story. In order to live a glamorous life of a celebrity, girls should buy this make-up. Are advertisements saying that wearing beautiful shades of lip gloss and seductive tints of lipstick will make you more glamorous and appealing? Or is it sex that really makes a woman all the more glamorous? Look at the model celebrities in the M.A.C advertisements, the promiscuous and revealing outfits do all the talking. Consumers are drawn to the ad first by the sexy models before they’re even aware of what is actually being sold. The sexual images are used to draw consumers into their advertisement. Unless girls wear these suggestive outfits along with the makeup, how can they look as sexy and desirable as Pamela Anderson, Fergie, or any of the other celebrities modeling M.A.C Viva Glam? With the process in attempting to attain ideal beauty, “women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it” (Wolfe 121). Advertisements sell the idea that sexual images are what men want because beautiful means being sexy. Also, the media tells us the roles of men and women in society, “Strong men battle for beautiful women and beautiful women are more reproductively successful” and by looking as sexy and beautiful as you can, women can get men to fight for them (Wolfe 121). Sex sells to both women and men.

Advertisements objectify women and their bodies. When they use women’s sexuality as a primary strategy to sell products, it teaches young girls that they can use and abuse sex and their bodies to sell something. Even when these images devalue women and their femininity, there are girls every day who devote their time to become just like the images. “Adolescents are new and inexperienced consumers, and such prime targets” (Kilbourne 258). Advertisements tell girls what to buy in order to look a certain way, and they are eager to try the new products. Young adolescent girls look up to celebrities and models in magazines, thinking that they are strong and sexy because of these products. The messages are so commonplace that they overlook the reality of how these models are presented, half naked, breasts exposed and posing with lustful body language. “Advertisers are aware of their role and do not hesitate to take advantage of the insecurities and anxieties of young people, usually in the guise of offering solutions” (Kilbourne 258). Innocent consumers are constantly told they are not good enough or not trying hard enough to meet the standards of beauty. The very ads that offer solutions create the issues of insecurity and anxiety. If they only had the right makeup to magically turn them into glamorous, beautiful models like in the advertisements, they would also have the confidence to show off their bodies. “The culture, both reflected and reinforced by advertising, urges girls to adopt a false self, to bury alive their real selves, to become “feminine” (Kilbourne 259). Therefore, the M.A.C. advertisement defines femininity for young girls today. Femininity is defined by the makeup they put on, the clothes they wear, or lack thereof; they just can’t be themselves because they could be so much more beautiful and desirable with all these glamorous products. Girls make their bodies and their beauty to be the most important aspect of their life because advertisements indirectly make them believe this is true. Being beautiful will help them get what they need whether it is attention, love, men, nice gifts, or even a positive self esteem and confidence. However, advertisements are helping young girls believe in the message that they are not beautiful enough; they make them feel less secure about themselves so that they would go and buy more and more products. Sadly, they will never attain the end goal of ideal beauty they think they can eventually achieve. As role models in magazines are being objectified, billions of girls want to be just like them. Advertisement in today’s society has a strong hold of young female consumers who aren’t happy about their sexuality, whether they know it or not; they are constantly reminded that they need to be a certain way in order to be feminine. Sex sells, and it’s not just selling products.

Works Cited

Kilbourne, Jean. “The More You Subtract, The More You Add.” Gender, Race, and Class in Media 2003:258-265.

Wolf, Naomi. "The Beauty Myth." Chapter III: Gender and Women's Bodies. 199): 120-125.

Images

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh0AW8og-KDo13uUvHf4n70wCeExmcqHCjXi0VXaFgWjD46zLff-PdWTGrDP13L7OiS7j2NC3nfrd1jUBlW3qJ3ckysLHf5ozaVaG1JFIxvBCSBgyaCbuSuDLWGGTAxPU4pkQjuQt_tU0/s400/dita-mac-viva-glam2.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUI2IWJ3fDwoxoXxDUA9yG2kn0ws53TTTzQuxOseB-dCghWh8MwF3rLr5tKsWUfKkCnMeIIUyLQaizFFZT1e89JQkfZUIUBUvznsyD9_fX0FsmjNIdXQmgMDYq8iannhDwoInTQnBdzvk/s400/eve-mac-viva-glam2.jpg

http://www.realself.com/files/u3066Vivaglam.jpg

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/2900000/Viva-Glam-V-Pamela-Anderson-mac-2944959-333-500.jpg

http://img.myyearbook.com/zenhex/images/quiz10/45259/res2.jpg

http://www.piercemattiepublicrelations.com/beautydivision/viva_glam_VI.jpg

http://girlgloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/windowslivewriterfergieandm.a.c.vivaglam-c038vg-fergie-2.jpg