Gender Stereotypes In The Help

The Help (2011)

1. How do culture, ethnicity and race affect people's leisure choices?

Culture, ethnicity and race affect people's leisure choices by setting guidelines that are enforced by laws and norms. In The Help, Jackson, Mississippi was divided by racial fueled views. These views developed into ideas which bloom laws that allowed for the segregation of people. Today, you only need money and a desire to do most things but back then another requirement was your physical characteristics. If you was black, you couldn't enter this theater or that restaurant. If you was a woman, you couldn't get this job or live that life style. This is shown clearly when Emma stone character Skeeter interviews Viola Davis character Aibileen.

2. How are gender stereotypes portrayed in this film? How are they culturally influenced?
There was one big gender stereotypes portrayed in this film.
It was the ideals of motherhood and what makes a good woman. It was the presumed duty of a woman to have and take care of children and because of this, was the main factor on judging a woman worth. Throughout the film, Skeeter was pushed toward giving up her dreams of being a writer and starting a family. For Skeeter, she had to hide her values in order to keep her dream alive. For Aibileen, work was a necessity to keep her family afloat, but even in her situation she had to hide certain facts from her love ones. In the end, their gender and culture put them in positon that they could not fit, so they had to become defiant to do what they believed
in.

3. Did your family traditions ever effect the choices you made? What were these choices? How did you deal with them? What did your friends think?

My family tradition contradict almost every aspects of my life. Coming from Eritrea, Africa, my family is Baptist with a strong belief in religious traditions. I am a Agonistic with an adaptive personality. Where they are stern and steadfast, I am fluid and ever-changing. Where they're only able to see defining characteristics and values, I see past it. If they were trees, I would be the river. We assist each other but are moved by different needs and wants. A good example of one of my choices, not considering religious preference, was my outlook on people. I choose to look at people as people, while my parent choose to look at people by their sex, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other traits. What thing I had to do to deal with our differing views, was accept them. My friends do not get to see the life I live with my family. They are constructs of their society just like I am and were only able to get this far because of their willpower and unwavering ways. So to tell you the truth, the things I hate about them is the same thing I love.