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This picture is used to show the Two Cultures of childhood and how they not only affect children but also teenagers and adults. Stated by Rudman and Glick in our book, The Social Psychology of Gender, “Children quickly develop strong gender schemas, cognitive associations of different attributes, behaviors, objects or social practices with “male” and “female” (59). This shows that at a young age children are able to and expected to understand the line that divides boys and girls. Boys are expected to play sports and be rough with one another where girls are expected to play kitchen and look pretty all the time. This picture illustrates the issue with these gender schemas we set up for children to learn. The lack of head space represents the lack of space a person has to maneuver within their gender “norms”. Children are expected to stay within their schemas and are not really allowed to venture outside without fear of being an outcast. The angle of the picture leaves less space for the boy side to move around indicating that the edges of the boy/men’s norm are more defined and rigid whereas the girl side has a little bit more space to move around and experiment but not a whole lot more than the boy’s side.
If you cover half of the girl in the picture at a time, you can see that the two sides are almost completely removed from the other side and that one needs to give up one side to be a part of the other. There is little mixing of the “boy” and “girl” side. The girl’s side is composed of high heels, white shorts, a bra, a kitchen spoon, a purse, a scarf and a pair of sunglasses. These items were chosen to represent the norms that girls are expected to follow; girls need to be pure (the white shorts), girls need to know how to cook, girls need to look pretty 24/7. Whereas the boy’s side there is comprised of almost the complete opposite; a soccer cleat, a soccer ball, a captains band, a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse penny. The soccer equipment and lacrosse gear representing rough sports which are typically reserved for boys and men and even the captain band that represents leadership is on the right side indicating that the culture sets up these schemas so that women feel as though they aren’t capable of being leaders. These gender identities that children are learning have a negative effect on how people live their lives, people feel as though they can’t do something outside of their genders’ culture for fear of being an outcast.
1 comment:
I think this photo is a great separation of boys and girls, and how society puts pressure on genders on how to act. Even though a girl may want to play sports and be more of a tomboy, there’s always something about her that needs to be womanly. I think the separation of boy and girl on either side of the model in the photo defines how split our views are on what is considered feminine. Not only does it show that woman are supposed to cook and look nice, it always shows that we need to be smart at the same time, which is defined by the book. Women are expected to be and do many things, but acting like a boy isn’t one of them, which is why no feminine objects are on the right side of the body. I believe this photograph shows what is viewed as the “norm” in what is being expected to be a girl, and what it is considered to be rebelling against womanly ways, and I think the message gets across very well.
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