I took a picture of my niece Kodi while outside dressed up in her Cinderella princess outfit in our backyard. As you can see she is in costume playing a part of Cinderella. Her hair is up in a bun with a ribbon in her hair and a beautiful gown on and what most would consider a typical girl activity which she loves to do every chance she gets. This picture is basically portraying how every little girl wants to grow up to be a princess aka the ‘’glass-slipper effect.’’ Are these characteristics of a princess realistic? No. Do little girls believe that these roles the Disney princesses play are realistic and the gender norms that a girl should have? Of course. So in fact this picture would most likely play apart into the stereotypes about little girls wanting to be princess’s to find their prince charming or instead they could be more like the girl in Brave and trying to be independent, discovering herself and breaking the gender norms.
Another point to make about this socialization is of woman and young girls are praised for these kinds of dress up costumes and beauty expectations at such a young age. When you look closely she is looking at the camera as if she had confidence of a princess. If this were a boy wearing the same exact costume as she, the best way to take this type of picture is to be looking down at him because we wouldn’t want to praise the boys for dressing up in princess costumes. When this comes to gender we often socialize princesses with girly girls and super heroes and bad guys’ costumes with boys or masculine females.
4 comments:
This photo of Kodi also portrays some of the continuing counter forces of gender equality because women are strictly responsible for taking care of their families. She is already learning to look beautiful (for a husband and society). Even though being a princess is not an actual occupation, she is learning to dress and play the part for whatever occupation she declares. For example, if someone asks her, "What do you want to be when you grow up," and she declares, "I want to be a nurse," then she will want to own a lab coat and a play stethoscope. This symbolizes occupational segregation because a nurse is a female-dominated profession where women tend to be caretakers of the sick or the elderly, which reinforces the traditional stereotypes. In addition to the stereotypes, Kodi also seems to adopt "gender performance." For example, if Kodi decided to be a doctor instead of a nurse, then she would be stepping outside of the "gender performance" and will be labeled as psychologically imbalanced, a manipulative schemer, and dangerous. These critical labels show that she will be recognized as a powerful woman since a doctor is a male-dominated occupation. In other words, if young girls do not follow traditional role, then they can lack authority, be criticized, and lose promotions or be demoted.
I love the way the dress and the girl seem to be "glowing" in the photo, giving the photograph a "magical" type of vibe to it. I think this picture is wonderful. The little girls stance seems to be empowering even at such a young age. When I was younger, I watched Disney movies and didn't even think twice about what I was watching. However, even today I can see in myself some ideas and concepts that I gained from watching these type of movies. Little girls can only DREAM of having a life like Cinderella's. Despite the fact that her parents are dead and she is taken care of by an evil step mother. Hearing this as an adult sounds wild. Who would want that in their life??? However there is some sort of amazing fantasy that kids see in these type of movies.
From: Hope
I love the way the dress and the girl seem to be "glowing" in the photo, giving the photograph a "magical" type of vibe to it. I think this picture is wonderful. The little girls stance seems to be empowering even at such a young age. When I was younger, I watched Disney movies and didn't even think twice about what I was watching. However, even today I can see in myself some ideas and concepts that I gained from watching these type of movies. Little girls can only DREAM of having a life like Cinderella's. Despite the fact that her parents are dead and she is taken care of by an evil step mother. Hearing this as an adult sounds wild. Who would want that in their life??? However there is some sort of amazing fantasy that kids see in these type of movies.
From:Kayla
In this photo the little girl seems happy to be a princess. She portrays the image of it from her shoes to her hair, she is looking directly into the camera which symbolizes confidence. I can relate to this photo because as a young girl i used to dress up as a princess as well.
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