Starting
at a very young age, children are bombarded with gender scripts. These
influence much of a child’s behavior but especially when choosing what to play
with and how they play as we learned in “The ‘Two Cultures’ of Childhood”. Boys
tend to learn more competitive and aggressive or action-oriented/ physical
styles of play. Girls tend to have more social oriented games that focus on
sharing or cooperation.
In
my photo, I chose to incorporate my siblings because they exemplify these
characteristics. My sister plays differently depending on which sibling she is
playing with. With my brother she is more active and aggressive and with my
sister she is more artistic, calm and social. The main focus is my youngest
sibling who is at the age of still learning these scripts and acting
accordingly. I placed her in the middle and closer to the camera to make her
the main subject. To her sides are my other siblings to signify opposites, or
sides. With our sister to the left, she is painting her nails to represent the
feminine script. On the right, she is playing a more physical game with my
brother for the masculine script. By putting them on different sides, I wanted
to show a clear, obvious difference between the two. My sister is facing away from
the camera towards the middle to also emphasize the distinction of there being
two sides. She would have to pick a sibling, or side, to look at or be
interested in. I had my brother look at the toys to show focus on the game
rather than relationships as boys do; my other sister is actively looking at my
sister’s hand while painting her nails to signify an attentiveness or care
towards my baby sister. I blurred the background so that the emphasis would be
on all of the people in the photo and represent that everything else around
doesn’t matter as much as what is directly presented to kid. I also kept my
baby sister’s outfit neutral to show that even if a kid doesn’t fall into
obvious gender roles, such as her wearing pink or playing with girl toys, that
these differences in “cultures” will manifest in other ways (how she interacts
with siblings of different genders).
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.
4 comments:
I like how you showed the gender differences with your siblings, through their activities and gaze in the photo. When reading your statement about the photo, I found that your brother looking more towards the toys and not your baby sister, is also connected to how boys are taught how to interact in general. Boys will often look away from each other, stand side beside etc. during the time that they communicate with one another. Your brother is doing what is seen as acceptable for his gender. And what he was taught. Your sister on the other hand, is facing towards a body part of your little sister, in this case is her hand. Girl’s often interact by facing one another and holding direct eye contact. Your sister painting the nails is also a common interest that girls have, and girls will often try to relate to one another during interaction. Children develop gender schemas at an early age, and the use of clothing colors that the little girl is wearing, to me signifies that her gender schema is developing as she is a chameleon, blending in with each activity between her older brother and sister. I also feel like it’s not just cultures teaching gender roles, but it is something passed down through generations. A conservative family (of any culture, ethnicity, etc.) will have different ideas for gender roles, verses a more liberal family. The parents pass down their ways to the kids and the kids adapt to the parent’s rules and ways of thinking when they are young and impressionable.
Hi Nariana,
I like and agree with your take on gender roles in society. I like how you showed your sister being physical with your brother when playing but being a girly girl when playing with your other sister. I would have incorporated framing space as a creative technique in with this photo by making your brother appear larger and sisters smaller, because boys are viewed as more important than girls in society. Another creative technique I would have used is gaze. The boy tends to be more focused on the toy and what’s going on with the toy whereas the sister tends to be more focused on the girl herself not what’s going on around them. The gender-neutral clothing was a great idea because the girl is showing that she is not just a girly girl who wants painted fingernails and makeup, but she is also rough housing and fighting for the toy against her brother.
This is Rebecca I love the picture, also the parents can be considered in the background, as Important but not as upfront importance as the child, and the child would be the foreground since she is the main importance in trying to display how all 2 aspects work together between the girl, the boy, and the child and putting the whole image together. Also, the painting nails is a symbolism in itself because that is signified as a girl activity and it is a common thing that everyone else knows as girl thing, like the blue shirt pink shirt kind of aspect. With the similar/difference creative technique, you see with the back turned you are seeing more of a symbolic group thing rather than the individual itself, saying that the focus isn’t her herself but what she as a girl represents, no facial expression or anything just more of a stand in for the whole layout to come together between all 3 of them.
Hello this is Natasha,
I loved this idea of the photo a lot. The image of the little girl having to choose between the feminine part of herself and the masculine part is clever. Growing up, children learn gender roles and what it means to play a role in society. This really shows how we have to choose every day to pick roles. Showing that the older sister is painting her nails magnifies women roles. Nail polish is associated with being feminine. The action figure is signifying the male role. The picture also depicts how diverse males and females are different just based off of the two objects used in the picture. Based off of how the little girl is being shown in the picture, I noticed she was very neutral. Which tells me she can play both roles if she decides to. I also liked how the author decided to show the care of the older sister and the focus to playing the game with the brother. In society, women are the care givers and the men worried about themselves. Showing those two differences really show outside looking in innate actions that both parties partake in. One creative technique that would have been a table turner would be her actually looking at the camera to show her expression. This would have given the picture a whole different meaning. She could have shown a more liking to the nail polish instead of playing with the brother or vice versa. This shift could have really gone any direction. Overall great picture.
Post a Comment