I want to start by saying I took a photo and discovered one side, a side where a little girl and her father were shopping for her softball gear and another side where a father and son who were shopping for baseball gear. These two families were experiencing the same thing, gender roles being forced upon children by society.
I took this picture with the intent on just talking about sports and how women had to fight to get the ability to have their own sports or teams recognized. And even though women have their own teams, we still don’t have as much of a selection as the boys. The picture shows the black, tan, and burgundy wooden baseball bats in many rungs; however, the softball bats only have two or three rungs. Not only that but the colors they show for girls are only white with pink or white with a light blue. It got me thinking, “how come girls don’t have red or black or light tan like the boys?” My original angle for this was going to be that girls are still not taken seriously in wanting to play sports. But when I went to take the first picture there was a little girl and her father shopping. The little girl saw the black baseball bats and wanted one but her dad told her that it was for boys as he picked up a white and pink bat. The little girl didn’t like the two colors or any of the white bats. The dad told her that girls like this color and she will have to like this color too. As mentioned before the father did not want them to be in the picture sadly. So I went home but discovered I didn’t get a very good angle of the bats. So I went back and found a boy and his father this time. It was similar in conversation only the boy wanted one of the white and purple softball bats. I assume his favorite color is purple but this dad said that the white and purple bats were for girls and he’s a little man. A little man shouldn’t use a little girl’s bat. Both of these dads were telling these kids what was expected for a boy and girl. Girls are to have pink and boys are to have dark “masculine” colors. And now that I have described what went on let me explain why I still kept this photo even though these two kids were not in them.
I chose to blur the surroundings (the gloves and the floor) to narrow the field of vision so the audience has to narrow their vision and to symbolize the way society is foggy in their vision. How they no longer see what they are doing to their children. The angle is from a looking down stand point and out to show just how many options both boys and girls have to choose from. There were no gender neutral bats (baseball or softball) symbolizing how society expects these children to pick boy or girl. Now what isn’t shown are the baseball and softball gloves which were very gender neutral, in fact, I had a hard time trying to figure out which gloves were meant for softball and which were meant for baseball. I think that was the point, as if the store was trying to say that it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or girl sport as long as the thing catches what it needs to catch then that’s all that matters. Parents are teaching children about gender roles without even noticing. Now, Baseball bats are heavier and a girl can use it for practice to get stronger; however, she cannot use it during a game. In fact my dad had to correct me and said I could get a baseball bat and he would be proud of me when I could swing it with ease. Yet when the little boy had tried to get the softball bat, which is lighter in weight, he was discouraged. Why is it that a girl can play baseball and it be seen as amazing that she has the strength and skill level to do so, but a boy playing softball is see as weak and pathetic?
1 comment:
From: Lauren
When I saw this picture, the first thing I noticed was the pink bat. This immediately stuck out to me because I knew it wasn’t a baseball bat, it was one of the few choices of softball bats available. When companies make a product for women that is traditionally meant for men, it’s sometimes lighter and maybe easier to use, like the softball bat compared to the baseball bat. However, changing the weight/size of the product isn’t quite enough to signal to everyone that this product is meant for girls. There also has to be some sort of color-coded indication, with the boys using a dark or neutral color to add to their masculinity, and the girls using lighter and softer colors to come across as daintier and more feminine. One could argue that this doesn’t really matter, it is just a color after all. But while this seems like a harmless tactic companies use to get women to buy their products, what it really does is reinforce the idea that men and women are more different than they are similar. It creates a narrative that suggests that even though something meant for women and something meant for men are similar, they still must be different. As if to say, women are different from men because they have to play softball instead of baseball. Women are different from men because they have to use a different bat and a different ball to play softball. Women are so different from men that they even have to use a different color of bat than men do. This practice may seem insignificant but drawing attention to the divide between men and women is more harmful than not.
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