Gender In Society

Observation Paper 1
Gender in Society

Sydnie Mickelson

Within this observation paper I hope to describe the following: feminism, social construction of gender, gender roles, the social learning theory, and the effect pop culture makes on society through television commercials. In my own words I will define the words I previously listed, and provide television commercial examples of each as well. First, I would like to bring up the topic of feminism (p. 10). Feminism was something that I hadn’t ever thought about, but felt somewhat uncomfortable when the word had been said. But now with the help of this class, I have learned that it’s not a word to be hesitant about. Feminism, to my understanding, is wanting equal rights for men and women in society whether it be amount each gets paid, exposing emotions, and feeling free to be who you are even if it’s not “acceptable” to society. The first example is the He for She speech that Emma Watson gave for UN Women. Until I had listened to how she described feminism, I was very confused of its definition. But now that I am aware and quite conscientious with this term, I feel that I have found an example of how to explain it through a commercial. Labels Against Women Philippines #ShineStrong Pantene is the name of the commercial I came to find. The beginning scene shows a man in a suit, and a woman in business attire. When the man walks into his office, across the street you see the word “BOSS” in bold letters on a large building standing for how the man is portrayed. The next scene shows the woman in the same office with the word “BOSSY” on the building. This alone showed that women are viewed differently than a man would in the same occupational position. But, what the commercial didn’t provide was how a man can be looked at as less of a man if he isn’t living by norms that society molds them into. Looking deep into the heart of YouTube I discovered a Tide commercial featuring a stay at home father. It’s not very often you see a father on a commercial talking about getting stains out of the children’s laundry. But what confused me was the end of the commercial when his little girl walks up to him and asks, “Daddy, can you French braid my hair?” When he then replies with, “Herring bone or fishtail?” I can picture so many people that I now personally that would maybe laugh at a commercial such as this one, or say something along the lines of, “That’s woman’s work”. These two commercials help me describe feminism in the way that I understand it, and how I believe that men and women should be able to do the same work and not be discriminated against because it’s not the “social norm”. Secondly, social construction of gender (p. 21) helped explain how gender is socially constructed. As the book says, it begins before a child is born. How I see gender being socially constructed are by positive reinforcements for acting the correct way in society’s eyes, and negative reinforcements for acting the wrong way in society’s eyes. If a little girl dresses in a beautiful pink dress, and act like “a little lady” the behavior is reinforced by complimenting the little girl, telling her how pretty she is, and how well she is behaving. If a little boy wants to wear a beautiful pink dress, the reinforcement is negative. He is told that dresses are for girls, and his sexuality, in some cases, gets questioned. I also had to find two commercials to help explain how I see the social construction of gender, the first being a Play 60 commercial featuring Cam Newton. The little boy thanks Cam for coming to his school, tells him he wants to be as big and strong, play in the NFL, and become Cam’s mother’s favorite player. Although a cute and funny, the boy is very confident and dreams to be a football player just like Cam Newton. But what if we put a little girl in his place instead? Is it crazy for a little girl to want to be a star football player? The next commercial is Beauty Bar Mother’s Day for a salon. The main character is a woman with three children, two girls, and a boy. You see all three kids run in the door coming home from what seems to be school to sit down and do they’re homework. But, the very next scene the little boy vanishes showing the two girls, the mother, and a grandmother character all in the kitchen doing some baking. Why isn’t the little boy in the kitchen helping? The women are all laughing and having a great time baking dessert, and the boy is nowhere to be found in this scene. This commercial may suit the definition of social construction of gender than the Play 60, but both help me explain the term well. Social roles (p. 32) very similar to how I described social construction of gender but goes more into depth because it focuses on peoples’ duties in society that are socially acceptable for men and women, again differentiating how a man or a woman should act as if they can’t act another way because it isn’t the norm. The book says that through social roles, cultural norms are pattered and learned. Some examples of social roles are mothers, football coach, or even being a significant other in a relationship. All of these have a different role in society, like a football coach teaching a boy to be tough and how to act like a man, while a mother’s role is to be seen as the care taker. You’re Doing OK Mom Johnson’s baby commercial is where I observed the meaning of social roles. The voice narrating the commercial is speaking as the baby to its mother telling her she’s doing ok as a mom. It lists all of these things a mother does to make her child happy, but nowhere in the commercial is there a man, or even a father figure mentioned. This is why I saw this commercial as a great example. Next, I will do the best to my ability to explain the social learning theory (p. 44). This theory is how people learn their gender through society giving them certain boundaries where they can and cannot act upon. Society often limits us through reinforcements, positive and negative, to control gender. Children often want to look to the parent who is of the same sex, thereby learning the social norms of their roles in society. In the Children See, Children Do commercial there are adults doing certain things like riding up an escalator smoking a cigarette, walking around drinking a beer, losing their cool on the road, at work, and even shows domestic violence. But with every adult doing these things are children following them acting in the same way that they are. Majority shows boys acting like their father, and the girls acting like their mother. And the message is to make your influence positive because children are known to act like their same sex parent according to the social learning theory. The second commercial was a little less dark. It’s a cute McDonald’s commercial aired in the Philippines. A little girl and her grandmother are getting ready together, singing, and having a great time. The little girl mirrored everything that her grandmother did which is why this represented the social learning theory. Last, but not least, I would like to talk about how pop culture (p. 59) influences gender in society. Pop culture is what I see as the everyday media such as music on the radio, television shows, and what you see in the magazines. Pop culture is what I feel has the biggest influence on gender differences. The first commercial example is any Victoria’s Secret commercial aired. They idolize these model’s bodies, making them sex symbols. When I watch the commercials I first feel uncomfortable because not very many woman do look like they do, and makes me feel like I should be sexier. But now that I can pay attention to different ways gender is introduced, I know that I don’t necessarily need to be that way just because it’s aired on the television. On the opposite end of the spectrum I found the Be Remembered motivational commercial by Ray Lewis. He talks about pushing through all of the things that people would tell him before he made it big. He talks about how hard he had to work to overcome everyone’s doubts. This is a way I saw they used pop culture because more little boys are going to relate to a big, strong football player, and look up to be like him someday. Some girls may also understand his message, but not in the same way a little boy does. Pop culture works in many mysterious ways when it comes to gender. My goal throughout this paper was to relate television commercials to terms related to gender in society. Not only did I come up with at least two commercial examples for almost each of the terms I chose, but did everything I could do go into depth as to why they related to them. Feminism, social construction of gender, gender roles, the social learning theory, and pop culture were all things I didn’t fully understand just a few short weeks ago, but with the help of this class, and this observation paper I have a more clear understanding of what each of them are and how to identify them. I hope I did the same for you.