Friday, April 30, 2010

Gender Socalization‏

From: Shane
This picture is of 11 year old Sam. He is in the middle of a pitching lesson. His father is watching closely. This picture represents how young boys can be "pressured" by their fathers to play sports instead of being artistic or expressing themselves in different ways. Sports such as baseball, teach strategies, hand eye coordination, leadership, power, control, and may help relieve aggresion in positive ways. These types of skills lead to jobs in law, engineering, and the military. These types of jobs lead to higher pay within the workplace.
In this photo I have included many signs and symbols with different meanings. I included Sam because he is the main focus of this picture. His father was included to show how he could be pressuring him to play baseball and do it just right. Sam is standing on a mound. This makes him taller. He is just about the same height as his father because of this. This shows that Sam may feel just as big as his father when he is pitching. This may be the only time that he and his dad get along. If you notice the background it is a cage. This could represent how Sam is traped. He may not want to play, but it makes his father happy. Sam does not want to dissapoint his father. Finally, you may notice that the background is black. Black is associated with evil, and the unknown. This could be how Sam views sports (evil), or his future with sports and his relationship with his father (unknown).

2 comments:

bnjones said...

I believe this picture really does show a lot about father son relationships involving sports. Sam might actually enjoy sports, but he might not. Fathers seem to put so much pressure on sons to be good at sports, it can sometimes cause conflict. Fathers seem to feel the need to “one up” other sports father by having an allstar child, not realizing whether its what the child wants or not. Children can actually associate their hard feelings with the pressure from their parents with actual the sport. They may feel as though they cannot make choices for themselves and want to rebel from whatever it is their parents are pushing them into. Another part of the picture I noticed was that the father has his hands on his hips, just another representation of the pressure he may be putting on Sam to excel at baseball.

Unknown said...

I agree alot with the meaning of this picrture. Boys are often pressure into sports in order to follow the norm for gender roles. The boy in the picture seems to be happy about playing baseball, but many boys are actually forced into doing "mainly" sports to pleased their fathers. If they dont they may get teased or bullied. This boy is representing how gender roles are learned and enforced through childhood.