from: Chris
This photograph is taken at a local card store. It shows a good example of how our society labels gender and how important it is to know what gender the new born is. This is a picture of a card stand with baby cards. It may be hard to tell but all the cards are labeled as “Baby Girl” or “Baby Boy”. I have looked around to see if I could find a card that did not state or show the baby’s gender but I was unable to find it. This tells me that the vast majority of the consumers who purchases these cards only buy the ones with the baby’s gender stated and that the store does not carry the “Baby Girl or Boy” cards for the lack of consumers. At the same time, the media plays a big role in inputting gender in our society. My assumption is that, if there are more options and selections for genderless cards at this particular stand, the consumers may choose the genderless cards and we may be able to see a new move in our society. Because the media does not offer a third option, we as a society are forced to choose from only two options. It is interesting to think of the affects that may take place if there were a third option. Isn't it?
3 comments:
I think this photo is interesting to me because it brings me back to the article we read about baby X. Right from the start we are taught that there are boys and there are girls, nothing in between; and this is a way of proving that. Even with something so innocent as buying a card for a newborn baby, it still has to be gender significant.
Having two genders is just comfortable...for most. What do you expect from card companies? A card compnay cant make a card for everything in between because our society demands perfection in how you look. The card company is just a factor in gender socialization, and a minor one at that. The causes are toys and clothes parents pick out for their kids. Parents enrolling their kids into gymnastics or baseball. That is the problem. I think society is starting to see that labeling children at a young age takes away from their creativity because my being told what you can and cannot do disallows you to do things you might be good at but never knew cause you never tried. Is it weird that men have been playing soccer in the world cup and never won in america...and the first year the women play they win? Maybe those women were allowed to pick what they wanted to do as kids...or...their parents never received a "its a girl card".
When i was looking around a store the other day for a birthday card i started looking at the baby cards and found the same problem as you. There were almost NO cards that didnt state the gender of the child. It was interesting because i found one card that didnt state the gender and wasnt color coded into gender either. BUT the stork that was on the card had a bow :/.. guess that hints at a girl?
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