From: Lexi
I decided to take a picture of my friends little sister
Emma. Emma is five years old. She is a typical five year old girl, loves to act
crazy, be adventurous and dress up in her favorite costumes. But there is one
thing that everyone thinks is different about Emma, she is a tomboy. She loves
to be on the field playing sports such as lacrosse, soccer and basketball, the
sports that have always been known for “boys”. Emma also hates dresses and make
up. You would think that since Emma is a girl that she would be getting into
her mom’s make up, trying on high heels and wearing pretty dressy clothes. But
that is not the Emma I know. Growing up Emma’s family always tried to get Emma
to play with baby dolls, Barbie’s and other girly things, but Emma was never
into that. Instead, she loved playing with matchbox cars, Spiderman, Batman,
and sword fighting with her dad. Emma would never let anything get to her when
her parents told her to play with girl toys. She has the sassy little girl
attitude which makes her seem very confident for what she wants to do. She also
has her hands on her hips which makes her look sassy as well along with looking
big and bad. When playing with other
kids her age, she tries to get them to play with her boy toys but the other
kids never want to. I decided to pick
“The Two Cultures of Childhood” and mainly focus on “differences between the
socialization of girls and boys in U.S culture”, “Assess gender-based
differences in toy-advertising”, and “The elements of childhood that are
gendered.” There are many problems with gender roles in the world today. For
example, if a little boy is crying, we would tell him to “man up”, where as if
a girl was crying, we would hug and comfort her. There should be no difference
when it comes to someone being upset. We should all treat each other the same
way as if there was no such thing as “gender”. “Two Cultures of Childhood”
helped me understand more about gender roles. Throughout the years, blue has
always been the color for boys and pink has always been the color for girls,
but why should a color determine your gender? It shouldn’t matter what toys a
boy or girl wants to play with, as long as they are happy, a color or toy
shouldn’t matter.
Work
cited
“The Two Cultures of Childhood” (e.g., more rough-and-humble
play by boys, more doll play by girls; Martin & Fabes, 2001)
“The Two Cultures of Childhood” (Campbell, Shirley, Heywood.
& Crooke, 2000; Fagot, Leinbach, & Hagen. 1986)
2 comments:
From Maddy: The model in the photograph is wearing a typical, more masculine pirate costume with her hands on her sides. This shows that there is a clear defiance towards gender norms, and that she’s confident about her choice. Pirates are generally the bad, tough guys of the sea and we do not perceive girls as being bad or tough. Having her hands in fists on her sides makes her seem ready for confrontation, which is another gender norm we do not think of women taking part in. She seems to be giving someone a “sassy” look, so we can infer that she was told that she should do more girly things, such as playing with baby dolls or make up. This shows another defiance in gender norms since we typically see girls being nice, submissive and people who do not talk back. The camera is about at eye level with the model and she is taking up most of the picture, which can show the viewer that it is okay to rebel against the gender norms. This is more impact having a child show a clear defiance against gender norms since childhood is where we learn these norms. The use of color further enhances the picture, because seeing it in black and white would suggest that girls should play and behave one way, while boys play and behave another.
From: Lydia
This image stood out to me because I saw a part of myself in this image. As a kid, I was very much a tomboy. I hated anything with glitter, sparkles, pink, or patterns. My mom bought me a lot of plain clothes from the boys’ section because I wanted plain, neutral colors. I also remember getting bullied by my friend for wearing boys’ shoes, even though I loved them. I think Lexi’s photo displayed her subtopic of “difference of socialization between girls and boys” very well. The model in the photo is dressed in a pirate costume. Pirates are usually associated with boys and most of the time when I see pirate toys; they’re in the boys’ section. Lexi talked about how the model, Emma, is posing in a sassy way which helps show that she is standing up to the gender norms. I thought this was a good point and not something that initially stood out to me. Another thing I want to add is the aspect of color. Lexi talked about how colors are associated with different genders in childhood culture. Boys are associated with blue, and girls are associated with pink. I think that also, from my experience, I’ve seen girls’ clothing and toys that are mainly pastel colors like yellow and light green and sparkly or with patterns. This reminded me of when I was a kid, and how I didn’t like those colors; I preferred red and darker colors. I like how the pirate costume Emma is wearing is red and black, because I think in our society people think of those colors as “for boys only”.
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