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Environmental Determinants Of Gender In The Media

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Introduction The way a person develops gendered self-differentiation in society has always intrigued researchers. An important aspect to take into account is realizing the differences between sex and gender. Sex refers to the biological makeup of an individual, classifying them as male or female due to the genitalia in which they posses. Gender is referred to as the social construct of being male or female, basically the role in which one conforms to. Society today upholds a gender binary, ostracizing any individual who does not identify as either male or female relevant to their genitalia. The development of gender is not yet to be defined because of the many intersections that come into play contradicting existing theories of gender development. …show more content…

From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, the media takes accountability for a significant amount of responsibility. Mischel (1966) highlighted the importance of environmental determinants of gender development such as, (rewards and models) and suggested that behaviors precede cognitions (e.g., “I have been rewarded for doing boy things, I must be a boy”). Hartley et al. tested this notion of environmental determinants, and studied the actions made by teenagers such as drinking and engaging in sexual activity receiving influence from the media. They found that the common portrayals in the media of sexual relationships tend to influence the construction of the gendered appropriate sexual behavior (Hartley et al., 2014). Evidently, they concluded that in doing gender socially, the media still has an influence on their perception of appropriated gender behavior, which is mediated through peer relationships. Viewing gender as a social construct brought about the concept of “doing gender.” West and Zimmerman believe that “doing gender” is neither a role in society or a trait that is inherited from a person’s biological make up. This idea focuses on how a human being interacts rather than internal factors such as nature or environmental factors solely being nurture. Hartley et al. took that approach and asked whether the media has an effect on the interactions that pertain to one’s …show more content…

Understanding the psychoanalytic perspective’s belief in significant life stages, and the social learning theory’s belief that individuals learn from observation works to consider all aspects of how gender emerges. After, I decided to view the more contemporary theories of how gender emerges, such as viewing gender as a construct. By other factors into the developmental role, the media became the main focus. I was able to compare and contrast the opposing ideas that media does have an effect on gender development from the belief that media does not have an effect on gender development. The contribution of differentiating perspectives allows for individuals to gain a well-rounded knowledge of theories. In turn, it allowed for me to create my own believe on whether the media has an influence or does

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1902 Words | 8 Pages

Introduction The concept of sex and gender has been socially constructed for a very long period of time, and it was a lot stricter in the past. As author Zimmerman indicated in his reading “Doing Gender” that “Those of us who taught courses in the area in the late 1960s and early 1970s were careful to distinguish one from the other.” (Zimmerman 1987) Nowadays, we know that the society is gradually changing and people are becoming more open-minded than before.

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1750 Words | 7 Pages

Albert Bandura has proposed the importance of social cognition theory, “learning socially accepted behaviours by observing them from their peers.” . Girls aged 12-14 years old begin to watch shows that pit women against each other such as Victorious, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Modern Family. These programs are on family networks, yet their subliminal messages transition to watching similar programs, like Keeping up with the Kardashian’s, The Real Housewives and The Bachelor as they transition to adulthood. Moss suggests the lack of female representation in multimedia has lead to the impression that women don’t talk to each other for ‘catty’ reasons. Academics Gerding and Signorielli believe that social cognitive theory, is a strong aspect of gender role learning to tweens as they are old enough to watch television actively and selectively.

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1331 Words | 6 Pages

Basing actions off of perception extends far beyond the literary worlds created by McLiam Wilson and Phillips. In an experiment by Behm-Morawitz, Lewallen, and Miller, the researchers found that the actions perceived in reality TV shows had an effect on the attitudes and behaviors of young female viewers. Viewers who watched romance reality TV shows were more likely to hold egalitarian gender role beliefs, while watching makeover and docusoap reality TV programming increased the likelihood that viewers believed females to be socially aggressive, what researchers called “the mean girl stereotype.” This preliminary research suggests that the perception of gender and action on television can have an effect on individual’s behavior in their daily life. This shows that viewers may find acceptable forms of gender and behavior that significantly changes their own behavior.

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804 Words | 4 Pages

Gender in communication studies indicate that social institutions can shape several individuals’s personality and perspectives. Social institutions can help these individuals determine what’s correct and incorrect or enforce specific norms, especially in early childhood development. Academic facilities and restrooms are examples of social institutions. However, the media is known to be ranked the highest in the list of social institutions, specifically the television industry. The television industries has been producing infamous animation for numerous decades, thus allowing them to obtain extremely high levels of income.

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347 Words | 2 Pages

California is one of the largest states in America and is located on the west coast. It is often referred to as the Golden State due to its sunny and bright weather and discovery of gold during the development stages of the state. California is a highly industrialized state and has a large number of important business concerns and firms operating within the state in various cities like Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, and many others. California is an extremely popular state in terms of tourism, business, and trade. Founded in 1967 through legislation concerning State Higher Education, the best Community Colleges in California today have the distinction of being the largest in the world.

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827 Words | 4 Pages

Our society is very malleable. The media controls what people are thinking and what they view. This causes them to compare themselves to the people in the media. Mass media has a great effect on gender it creates an ideology of inequality and normalizes it. It broadcast that sex is an aspect of gender and the concept that "men are men and women are women," (Aulette and Wittner 21).

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2008 Words | 9 Pages

Media in all types of forms will be used to communicate what society believes is to be normal in the current culture. In the essay titled “First” by Ryan Van Meter he describes an experience he had in the back of a station wagon with his first crush. The story of the car ride describes the first time he is told not to feel a certain way towards the same-sex. Though it is ambiguous to say this essay talks about gender roles. On boundless.com gender roles can be defined as “society 's concept of how men and women are expected to act and behave” (Gender and Sociology).

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Gender is something that is brought to the attention of people well before people are even brought into the world. Take for instance, when a woman finds out that she is pregnant and is about to have a child. The first question that that women is asked is “What are you having?” In doing this we are automatically emphasizing the importance of being able to identify whether or not to buy “boy” things or “girl” things. As a society we deem it important for each sex to practice a set of “norms” of how to behave via that sex.

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1308 Words | 6 Pages

Unlike ‘sex’, which typically refers to the biological and physiological differences, gender is a sociological concept that describes the social and cultural constructions that is associated with one’s sex (Giddens & Sutton, 2013, p. 623-667). The constructed (or invented) characteristics that defines gender is an ongoing process that varies between societies and culture and it can change over time. For example, features that are overly masculine in one culture can be seen as feminine in another; however, the relation between the two should not be seen as static. Gender socialization is thought to be a major explanation for gender differences, where children adhere to traditional gender roles from different agencies of socialization. Gender

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132 Words | 1 Pages

Children and young adults are identifying with gender roles at a young age due to mass media. Children develop within a society that is gender-specific when it comes to social and behavioral norms. These come from the family’s structure, how they play with others and by themselves, and school. Girls were expected to be more passive while boys were to be more aggressive and expressive with masculine behaviors. “Before the age of three, children can differentiate toys typically used by boys or girls and begin to play with children of their own gender in activities identified with that gender.

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1387 Words | 6 Pages

According to sexologists John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, sex and gender are separate categories. “Sex, they argued, refers to physical attributes and is anatomically and physiologically determined. Gender they saw as a psychological transformation - the internal conviction that one is either male or female (gender identity) and the behavioral expressions of that conviction” (Sterling 4). Although there are biological differences between the two sexes, but gender roles are socially constructed. They determine how males and females should think, speak, dress, behave and interact with society.

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1549 Words | 7 Pages

Being pressured into conventional roles today is less common than back in the 40’s and 50’s when society had nothing but conforming roles for men and women in society. examples of this come from how men and women were brought up, culture and media. If it were not for these three factors gender roles would be farfetched. But unfortunately, there is still this pressure of gender roles and one way or another everyone has to make the decision of whoever they want to be and live with those roles. In this essay culture, media and how both men and women being raised affect gender roles and socialization.

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3541 Words | 15 Pages

EXTENDED ESSAY- GENDER BIAS IN THE MEDIA TOPIC: How does Media portray gender, and the effects it has on the 21st century individual? By: Calvin Mends INTRODUCTION:

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1093 Words | 5 Pages

Although some people believe that nature affects the gender identity, others argue that, based on the education an individual receives, it is actually nurture. For example, John Moore, a teacher at a female-only school, says, “My findings suggest that, in some senses, the single-sex school is strongly feminist” (Moore, 2005). On the other hand, many societies teach the children gender stereotypes to try and limit them from becoming against what the society feels is appropriate. Gender roles or stereotypes are “a set of qualities, behaviors, and attitudes that are considered appropriate for males and females based on their biological sex” (Whalen & Maurer-Starks, 2008). Most of the time, these stereotypes are taught and explained to the children in the early stages of learning, since as mentioned above, gender identity is most likely detected after the child is two years old.

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2285 Words | 10 Pages

The representation of gender in mass communications has been a hugely debated topic for years and will continue to be one for many more years to come. The media plays a big role in how they want to portray a gender to the public. They create certain stereotypes through the role of a gender in order to attract a large audience and interest to sell a product, brand or image. Media is so important in today’s society, people spend hours and hours each day watching TV, browsing the Internet and reading magazines. There are so many images of men and women in the media today that it certainly has an impact on the viewer’s thoughts and sense of identity.

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