Two Worlds of Childhood

From: Brianna
The teenage boy in the photo is my brother, Bryan, who is 16 years old. Since he was a child, he has loved video games. We always encourage him to play other things, like word search, hence the second part of the photo. He is playing word search on the back of a pizza box. My parents and I need to tell him to do different activities like these because we are afraid he will grow up and be an aggressive man towards women or in society.

I took the picture of him playing video games with the camera angled to the center of the screen, because this is what society tells boys to do. Playing video games is a normal thing among boys. There is an aisle of boys at any store and it is usually filled with video games, cars, or Legos. Traditionally, word search is a normal thing among girls, so I took the picture with the camera angled downwards because this is not what society tells boys to do. According to an article, “Gender schemas become part of self-identity, influencing children’s preferences, attitudes, and behavior as they strive to act in socially appropriate “masculine” or “feminine” ways (“The ‘Two Cultures’ of Childhood). This explains how gender schemas teach children how they should act and play according to their gender.

The second technique I used for the photo is the background. I used the dining room in front of the kitchen symbolizing “woman roles”. Traditionally, one of the roles of a woman is cooking, although men are breaking this stereotype in this new generation. The background or area of my brother playing his video game is the living room, which symbolizes freedom to do anything and be comfortable, because it is where you sit and enjoy your time watching TV and relaxing.

The third technique I used is power. Batman is a hero; therefore, he must be a strong and tough guy and a role model for boys. From this image, boys learn they need to be strong and confident, just like Batman. On the other side of the picture, word search is a weakness because words don’t matter in a boy’s world, only actions matter. This statement can be supported by the article “The Two Cultures of Childhood.” It says, “Rough-and-tumble play among boys can devolve from good-natured roughhousing (much more common) into aggression (less common but more frequent among boys than girls).”

Works Cited
Rudman, Laurie A., et al. “The Two Cultures of Childhood.” The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press, 2015, 59-63.