From: Jamie
Boys and girls are taught by their parents, family, and friends from a very young age how they should act, what toys they should play with, how they should interact with others, what they should prioritize, etc. There are certain norms, values, behaviors, and beliefs that males and females should uphold throughout their life respective to their gender group. If they do not uphold certain expectations and roles, they will be ostracized.
For one, men are taught as little boys that they will “wear the pants” in a relationship. In a heterosexual relationship, the men are supposed to be the dominant of the two. They have more control, make all the decisions for the pair, and take charge of situations. The woman is taught to be submissive, to listen to her husband, and to not make decisions on her own. Many children see this traditional dynamic in their own household and believe it to be the norm.
Another example of how boys and girls are socialized differently is how much emphasis society puts on how a woman should look. Girls are taught that their only asset is their looks and that they should prioritize their appearance over anything else. They must wear makeup, heels, and pretty dresses. They should do their hair everyday and have smooth, hairless skin. Boys typically don't have this pressure appearance-wise, and are more pressured to be intelligent or athletic.
Lastly, women’s goals in life are generally thought to be anything regarding family or marriage. They are supposed to want a nice house to keep up with, a lot of kids to take care of, and a husband to take care of her. Men’s goals are generally work or money based. They are supposed to work 8+ hours a day and be the breadwinner of the family. This is completely taught behavior as these roles can easily be swapped, it would just be seen as wrong and unusual.
For this project, I wanted to focus on how socialization has affected everything to do with weddings and marriage, and the different roles the bride and the groom play. I went through my mother’s photo albums to find the perfect pictures to represent my topic. The way the middle picture is taken and how the groom is on one knee looking up at his bride draws the audience's gaze to the woman rather than the man. It emphasizes how all eyes are on the woman. One point I wanted to make is how weddings are typically centered around the woman. It is seen as more of a crucial moment in a woman's life rather than the man’s life. Women are supposed to surrender their life to finding someone to take care of them, starting a family and having kids. Many young girls are taught this. Women are supposed to value marriage more than a man should.
Although values are rapidly changing, it is the norm for women to wear white to their wedding. The color white typically represents purity, innocence, and virginity. It is also considered to be the color of perfection. Society holds this image of how a bride should look and what kind of person she should be. Why does a woman have so much pressure to be this clean, virtuous person? Why are women given this pressure and not men? A white wedding dress has become the norm in today’s society to emphasize her clean slate and new beginnings. It was once thought that a woman should not wear white on her second marriage because she is not pure nor would she be a virgin. A man is not given these unrealistic societal standards.
In the picture above, I implemented foreground and background to layer a picture of the groom and his groomsmen in the back and the bride and her bridesmaids in the front, again emphasizing the importance of marriage for a woman rather than a man. When a woman gets married, tradition makes it so that many things in her life will change. She will take her husband’s last name and remove hers from her life. She will go from Ms. to Mrs. because a woman must identify to the public if she is married or not. Foreground emphasizes importance, so putting the women in the front explains to the audience how women are supposed to manipulate their identity to get married. A man goes through none of this.
All in all, marriage and wedding ceremonies are a great example of how men and women have been socialized differently throughout their life and how traditions and norms keep men and women from being seen as equals.
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.
1 comment:
From: Arielle
The way the author positioned the three photos, on a diagonal, overlapping, and with the bride and groom in the center, is a representation of how we are separate, but not equal. For example, the use of overlapping in the photo in which the men are more obscured, while the women’s photo is prominent and not blocked in any way, symbolizes how weddings are presented as more important to women and men become less significant.
The center photo of the man kneeling before the woman is a representation of gender norms and scripts learned at a very young age and carried out into adulthood in many cultures worldwide. The man follows his gender script by kneeling at the foot of the woman, asking for her to be with him. In her discussion of the picture of the bride and groom, the author aptly describes weddings as traditionally being centered around the bride. This is what girls and boys learn at a young age when they play. How to position oneself at a wedding based on the gender norms. The people in the photos clearly learned their gender roles and are following the script they learned at such a young age.
In her photo the author shows us three pictures, the bride and groom in the center, the groomsmen up top, and the bridesmaids on the bottom. While the pictures are arranged so that the top and bottom seem to touch the middle one of the bride and groom, I was particularly struck with how far apart and separate the men were from the women and that the men were placed above, while the picture of the women was below. To me this represents how men and women, even in marriage, as in business, as in sports, are still separate, but not equal.
All in all, I think the author did a good job with using the creative elements of placement of the photos along with the symbolism of gender norms as a concept in the photos.
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