This a photo of a little girl in a princess costume and a teenager in a “sexy kitten” costume. This photo says a lot about gender-socialization and gender norms. For one example is that being a princess or a “sexy kitty” for Halloween is very normal for girls. As for guys it is normal to dress up as things such as super hero’s or policeman or things seen as masculine. If a little boy were to dress up as a princess or cute cat he would be looked at weird and it would be seen as “frowned upon”. It’s not seen as the norm. People who go outside the norm are usually ridiculed and teased or sometimes even shunned. The princess costume says a lot about the stereotypes for little girls.
This picture also pertains to the “glass-slipper effect”. Every girl dreams of being this princess that finds her prince and they live happily ever after. Is this very realistic? Not at all. Do most little girls believe it? Of course. Ironically enough this specific princess is Elsa from the movie Frozen. This movie specifically ended by Anna saving her sisters life by committing an act of “True Love” Disney for once switched it up and made sisters become the key to success instead of a quote on quote “prince charming”. So this picture could play into the stereotypes about little girls wanting to be princess’s to find their prince charming or they could be more like Elsa and be independent .
Another point to make is about the socialization that woman and little girls are praised for these kinds of costumes. If you look closely the camera is angled so that it’s slightly looking up to them. If it was a little boy wearing the same costume a better way to take the picture would be to look down on him because we don’t socialize or praise boys for dressing in little girls’ costumes. When it comes to gender socialization we socialize princesses and girly costumes with girls are more masculine costumes such as policemen, super heroes and things like that as little boy’s costumes.
2 comments:
From: Katelyn
From this photograph you can see the differences between the two completely different girls. You notice the older girl has less clothing on than the younger girl. Teenagers tend to dress older than they really are to fit in the norm. Generally teenagers get made fun of for not being attractive enough or not dressing the way they think they should. The young girl is covered up and no skin is showing, whereas the older one is see as showing skin.
The older girl in the photograph's costume in contrast to the younger girl's one really highlights how girls are expected to grow up. At first they are always expected to be princesses or witches for Halloween, yet as they get older it is a societal norm that their costume cover less and less of their body. you no longer see girls being 'princesses' but some sort of costume of the 'sexy' variety. If you go to any party store that sells costumes, nearly every costume for girls over the age of 12 is titles 'sexy _____' while boys costumes are essentially the same ones they wore when they were younger, but scaled up to fit their now bigger bodies. obviously there are costume titled 'sexy ____' for older boys, but they are not the majority of costumes in the store. Girls are expected to become sexier as they grow older and some who would still wear a princess outfit may be looked down upon as being immature or strange. While boys are free to be as immature and childish as they please.
-cseiz
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