Beauty or Beast

From: Haley

Growing up kids tend to pick up on their roles from the people around them, whether it a parent or siblings, kids are always watching to see how to behave. In “The Two Cultures of Childhood” it is said that “children learn gender schemas from their social environments, but they also adopt and exaggerate distinctions between the sexes” (Rudman). In our household there was 4 girls and 1 boy- we girls were always taught that we could do whatever we set our minds to but my brother was always being told to man up and that he would be head of household one day so he had to learn to do the things we didn’t.
I chose this side by side of my youngest siblings, one year apart, to show how my brother was pushed more towards the outdoors type of activities and how my sister was more interested in beauty standards at their age. They learned these schemas by watching others in our family, my brother wanted to always be with our dad, uncles, and grandfather- who were all outdoorsy people. While my sister always wanted to hang out with us older girls, and our mom. In the article it says “Thus, children not only segregate themselves by playing with same-sex peers but engage in different kinds of play with these groups (Rudman 61). The picture of my brother holding a fish and looking proud of it, and my sister after her first eyebrow waxing, red and glossy eyed, shows the different roles boys and girls get accustomed to as such young ages. 

In my sisters photo, her gaze is looking straight into the camera. You can tell the pain she was feeling through her eyes. It brings a powerful sense of, “why did I do this” to the photo. This is how it is for many girls conforming to beauty norms and accepting “beauty hurts” as way of going through life and accepting the pain in order to feel pretty or receive compliments. I also made sure she was the center of the whole side in order to give the sense of all attention on her. The way many women feel stepping out into the public, that everybody is watching them. My brother’s photo is in B&W for the dramatics. Here’s a young boy who feels on top of the world because he caught a fish. His gaze is on the fish, the accomplishment of his activity- which instead of beauty in most cases men wants something they can hold onto. I also zoomed the picture out in order to show his entire body, his stance taking up most of the photo. He is the center of attention but his attention is focused on the fish. Instead of worrying about what people think of his catch, he is focusing on the joy he feels in the moment- something boys tend to do better then girls.
These photos help to understand the way the two different gender cultures compare and how it is taught from a young age. Watching others is a big part of how kids determine how they want to act and how they would like to be seen.