Stereotypes in Gender - Essay Example

 Stereotypes in Gender Gender roles – the male and the female domain – have been stereotyped through ages not only as a direct result of societal conditioning but also as an economic necessity rising from a basic concept of division of labour. Men have taken over the role of a bread winner, protector or basically one whose domain of work remains the world outside his house. Women, traditionally considered to be the physically weaker between the two – a generalisation, no doubt, were confined with giving birth, taking care of the children, home and hearth. One can say that nature in itself was an indicator in how these roles were defined. The very fact that the women gave birth made it someway mandatory that they take care of the children. The women’s terrain got defined inside her house. The Social Conditioning When children grow up, it is the environmental conditioning that works strongly to establish this stereotype. Parents set examples, not because they intend to, but as a normal trend of daily activities and behaviour. The child watches the father managing the office and the mother taking care of the cooking or the new baby. Girls usually take their mothers as their role models and boys go after their fathers. According to Dr. Benjamin Spock, people are likely to appreciate girls' cuteness and boys' achievements. Similar gender identification is followed even in schools where a preschooler is taught to distinguish between the man and the woman through the length of the hair or the dress they are wearing. Even gifts given to children support this distinction; girls are traditionally given dolls, while boys are given cars or sports items. Advertisers target their goods at gender specific audience and try to influence spending in separate male and female domains. Researcher Krisanne Bursik conducted a study about ego development at Suffolk University in Boston and compared the results to gender-related traits; of the 209 undergrads that she studied, she found that students who had higher levels of ego development were more likely to express non-traditional gender role traits. Male students, those who had less-developed egos viewed high levels of traditional masculinity as the ideal. She noted that in these men, "gender role conflict may occur for men when rigid, sexist or restrictive gender roles, learned during socialisation, result in personal restriction, devaluation, or violation of others or self." In his book ‘Reaching up for Manhood,’ author Geoffrey Canada wrote, "The image of male as strong is mixed with the image of male as violent. Male as virile gets mixed with male as promiscuous. Males as intelligent often get mixed with male as arrogant, racist, and sexist." The question, however, is if this stereotype is in for a change. In the last thirty to forty years gender roles have changed; the change has basically come because of two factors. One, the economic independence of woman that has come with education and enlightenment; this has led to an increasing participation of women in the labour market. The second change has come because of the increasing secularisation that has eroded traditional religious dictums and moral absolutes such as divorce, adultery, homosexuality and abortion. How Television and Movies Reflect Gender Stereotypes Gender and sex are two different attributes, according to most social scientists. Gender is affected through culture and epoch rather than actual sex of the individual. Gender roles are consequently described by social scientists as socially constructed. Visual mass media such as television and cinema has historically played an important role in defining the gender stereotypes. In a society still dominated by men, TV production and consequently the programmes have a traditional male perspective, perpetuating dominant gender stereotypes. Though this different portrayal by television and cinema has mellowed down over the years with the demarcating line getting hazier, even now there is a strong bias towards polarised portrayal. While women are associated with traits such as emotionality, prudence, co-operation, a communal sense and compliance masculine characters tends to be associated with such traits as rationality, efficiency, competition, individualism and ruthlessness. For example buddy movies tend to portray men paired together and always tend to be action oriented. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being classic examples of such celebration of the 'buddy' relationship. Women in the film are treated as marginal and as objects of exchange between the two buddies (Easthope). Other buddy themes depicted in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Starsky & Hutch, M*A*S*H, Star Trek and Miami Vice, also go the same way. Bonding in such shows, typically with alliance to male characteristic, shows activity or goal oriented bonding, rather than emotion bonding. That mass media acts as important agents of socialisation, along with family and environment, and contributes widely to shaping of gender roles. Boys when they grow up spend or are influenced more by the movie and television role models, while girls emulate and look up to the female divas. Movies, over time, have also played its role in stereotyping gender. Movies such as Million Dollar Baby, Fight Club, Erin Brockovich and many others deal with women being barred or facing hurdles in various spheres of life. It is general knowledge that media, in any form, is driven by advertising, and most advertising campaigns are targeted at the male market aged between 18 and 34, obviously those with spending capacity. Little wonder that the starring role in two-thirds of movies and television serials are played by a young man. A report by Martha Lauzen, Professor of communication at the San Diego State University, shows how female character driven serials and shows are slotted at the more unpopular TV hours; this further indicates that a crew dominated by women, both characters and makers, might be biased with unpopular timings and hence lower ratings. Consider this – writer Paul Krumins interviewed media industry professionals and this is what most of them said "women will pretty much do anything to get to snuggle with their boyfriend or husband." And if this is the belief or reality of the situation then it is no wonder that makers of advertisements, movies and television shows take women role models lightly. Having said all this, let’s now consider two movies, to show how it has brought forth a typical case of female stereotyping – ‘the home is a feminine space.’ Traditionally the home has always been the place where the wife, mother, sister or any other female character has ruled. Though this is slowly changing with change in the social and economic dynamics that is moving a male-skewed world towards a more neutral one, it (the home) still remains under female control. Even the modern working woman, who is as busy with her work as her spouse, is expected to do more in the house than her partner. The two movies that will be considered in this essay are ‘The Others’ and ‘Gosford Park.’ Movie – The Others ‘The Others,’ a supernatural thriller, is set in post World War 2, England. Grace Stewart, a young mother of two children, stays in a huge mansion in Jersey, Channel Islands, with her two photosensitive children. She waits for the return of her husband Charles, who had left her to join the war, fighting for England. As Grace tells the children, whenever they ask about the father, “He is in France, fighting the war, on the good side.” The children Anne and Nicholas are kept locked up inside the dark rooms, as light stronger than candles will make them break out into rashes and suffocate them. Grace is the quintessential woman, who manages the house, the children and her loneliness, being the pillar of strength to her small family. She runs the home meticulously, manages the servants, the studies, both formal and academic, of the children, and prays for her husband to return. Her frustration and anguish shows in the periodic bouts of anger and impatience of having to deal with the entire situation on her own. Still, as the lady and mistress of the house, she does not give up. At one point in the movie, when Mrs. Mills, the new housekeeper, seeing that Grace is tired, asks her to ‘leave the house to her,’ Grace flares up and admonishes her, showing clearly that it is preposterous even to suggest that she is incapable of ruling her territory. Grace is like a lion in her lair, ruling one and all, and trying to manage something that is quite impossible for a single person to do. Grace shows a plethora of emotions, from the stern disciplinarian to the protective and the dotting mother. In another scene from the movie, Grace finds that her husband Charles has returned from the war. In an intimate confrontation with Charles, Grace reveals that for her it was enough to know, love and marry Charles. But for Charles, she has never been everything in his life. For him, his country had been more important and he had been able to leave them, to go and fight his war. Here also the movie shows the typical characteristics of men and women, as far as their happiness counts. In the movie, Grace is shown also to be an extremely brave woman, not because she is inherently brave but because as the protector of her children she can go to any extent. Towards the end, the movie reveals that Grace had actually lost her mental balance and had killed her children and then shot herself. However, the house was so dear to her that even in her afterlife she and her children lingered on. So, the Grace we see from the starting of the movie is actually the supernatural remains of the once living residents. The story in a way depicts the ultimate passion of the woman towards her home. Movie – Gosford Park The movie is set in the year 1932 in an English country house deals with a story where upper class rich British and American guests have congregated for a weekend hunting party. Though the movie aims to showcase the treatment of the servants by their masters and the great divide that exists between two diversely contrasted social and economic groups, there is a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. But rather than a simple mystery to be solved, the film uses the whodunit format to create a drama showcasing the tensions of the British class system. There are many subplots that get intertwined in the main story and the characters are built to show the relationships between the wealthy (above stairs) guest and the servants (below stairs). In one of the scenes, when Mr. Weissman’s valet, Henry, enter the kitchen to inform the cooks of the fact that Mr. Weissman is a vegetarian, there is subdued laughter and sidelong glances are thrown at this young man, who has clearly entered a woman’s domain. He is unceremoniously asked to leave, one may say almost thrown out, by Mrs, Wilson, who is the person in charge of the below stairs retinue of butlers, valets, maids-in-waiting, the cooks and the other maids. In fact throughout the movie, Mrs. Wilson is the one in charge and every activity is monitored by her. Any request of the guests has to be let known to her, through their man/maid servants and valets, and she is the one who would process the request. This again showed how the home domain or at least the efficient running of the house was controlled by her. She moves about the below stairs area, and inspects everything ‘a regular inspection,’ as she calls it. She even enters the rooms of valets and asks them not to smoke, as ‘it is against the rules.’ Her very authority and mannerism speaks of her dominance in what she thinks is her demarcated area of control. The fact is that the household runs smoothly under Mrs. Wilson, who as Lady Sylvia, the lady of the house, says ‘is as usual a step ahead with her duty.’ Though the movie does not intend or aim at showing that the ‘house is essentially a feminine space,’ the effects of the period, which it showcases, strongly brings about this sentiment. The daily activities of the kitchen, as the work force is shown about going through their daily drill, are conspicuous with its dominance of women, where the few men actually stand out. In fact, there is also tension between the Mrs. Wilson and the head cook (Mrs. Croft) regarding their jurisdictions. When Mr. Weissman is singing for the gathered guests and all the below stair staff is enjoying the singling as well, Mrs. Wilson passes by and curtly remarks about all of them listening to the music. She asks Dorothy, one of the maids to get back to work. It is then that Mrs. Croft exerts her territorial prowess and says, “Dorothy is under my jurisdiction and I say that she can enjoy a spot of music.” Conclusion By 2025, about 60 percent of the wealth will be owned by women in UK. This clearly defines a marked change in the role of women and shows that broad changes are taking place and that women are moving out of the home to the working place. However, some gender experts are skeptical about the extent of change (Nolan and Scott 2006). But undoubtedly ideology is changing, and gender patterns of domestic behaviour are also changing, albeit very slowly, with men changing less quickly and to a lesser extent than women. The more men and women share space at home and work, family life will turn equitable. Reference List 1. The Celebrity Café Reviews. Judith Fox. [Internet] (Updated 8 July 2002) Available at: http://thecelebritycafe.com/movies/full_review/38.html [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] 2. Gosford Park. A USA Films Release. Synopsis. [Internet] (Updated NA) Available at: http://www.murphsplace.com/owen/film/gosford/gosford3.html [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] 3. Television and Gender Roles. Daniel Chandler. [Internet] (Updated NA) Available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/gendertv.html [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] 4. The Economics of Gender Stereotyping. [Internet] (Updated NA) Available at:http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_economics.cfm [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] 5. [Internet] (Updated NA) Available at: http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/8/Gender-roles.html [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] 6. [Internet] (Updated NA) Available at: http://www.bodylanguageexpert.co.uk/ChangingGenderRoles.html [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] 7. Family and Gender Roles: How Attitudes Are Changing. Jacqueline Scott. University of Cambridge. [Internet] (Updated Sept 2006) Available at: http://www.genet.ac.uk/workpapers/GeNet2006p21.pdf [Accessed 16 Dec 2009.] Read More