Rosemary Okumu PSYC 1113 – Section 11/18 /2016 Gender Gender is the state of being male or female. Male are thought to be adventurous, aggressive, strong whereas females are to be affectionate, attractive, shy and sexy. While I highly identify with my feminine gender characteristics, at times l possess masculine characteristics like confidence, ambition, and sometimes aggression.
Marlina (2015) discussed about patterning the quests of the heroes in question using Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. The author tries to demonstrate that the chosen female heroes for this research: Psyche, Artemis and Katniss, qualify as male heroes. According to traditional beliefs, differences between male and female behavior are genetically or biologically determined. However, recent research has discovered that these differences are actually based on the gender concept or socially constructed. Miller (2012) mentioned that gender is ‘the changeable roles, activities, behaviors, and personality features that a society views’ and is an ideal standard for men and women.
From a young age, children are told that the good guys are the ones wearing the superhero suit: they help those in need while maintaining a good reputation among others. But, most heroes are only known by their “stage name”, like Superman, and Clark Kent doesn’t get the everyday recognition of the people around him, like his alter ego does. If people learn that Clark Kent and Superman are the same, they will view him in a better light. But when an everyday person sees themselves as a superhero, their ego can grow unreasonably high. Geraldine Brooks, in her novel March, shows that an obsessive need to look like the hero is just a ruse for an inflated ego.
I would also agree with the acknowledgements made by the authors, Sesame Street does include other important elements that make it everyone's favorite, nevertheless that does not justify and make the sexist profiling okay. Philip Cohen wrote "The Trouble With Disney's Teeny, Tiny Princesses", exploring other big companies that include gender profiling and sexist stereotypes. With the increase of animated children's movies, the exaggerations made between female and male characters to differentiate them are excessive. It's obvious that males are usually built bigger, and stronger than women but like "they almost always promote the same image of big men and tiny women" (Cohen). According to Cohen, the male characters hands are typically three to four times bigger than the women's, notwithstanding in reality, males wrist are only about 15% larger than women's.
A female child is left to believe that, even when her body is as big as her spirit, she will still be helping with minor tasks, appreciating the accomplishments of others, and waiting to be rescued. Of course, pleasure is to be found in all these experiences…pleasure that should be open to boys, too” (266). This declaration is key to understanding why Wonder Woman is such a revolutionary figure in the comic book business. Not only does Wonder Woman inspire self-respect in women since she is the first major female superhero, rising from a mass of blood, violence, and heroic men in previous comics, but also she relieves some of the coming-of-age pressures many adolescent boys face in social situations with both girls and other guys: controlling their emotions, standing independently, being the one to initiate, and so on.
Many of the major blockbuster TV shows of the past decade could be accredited for their uniqueness in terms of the setting and story portrayed. This idea is evident in shows like the medieval story of Game of Thrones, or through the controversial life of a United States CIA agent in Homeland. This was not the case for when the TV show Mad Men first aired in 2007, and even the New York Magazine’s review of this season was quoted as saying that it was “like a fifties leftover, chock-full of unimportant secrets” (Leonard, “Mad Men”). What Mad Men did instead, was bring viewers back in time to New York in the 1960’s, where sexism and racism was unpleasantly pronounced in the workplace. The shows creator, Matthew Weiner, did this unique endeavor
So what happened? Why did neither of these two women get elected? Hillary Clinton, who early in the race was the Democratic hopeful, and was neck and neck with Obama in the poles. Why did Clinton lose so much political ground during the primaries? For Sarah Palin, she is only the second woman to ever be nominated as a vice presidential candidate on a major party nomination.
Superhero movies such as The Avengers, The Batman, and The X-Men all have pull record breaking box offices on their first week of release, influencing millions upon millions of viewers worldwide. In these movies, women are heavily sexualized; usually being seen as a sex symbol wearing very revealing articles of clothing, acting a certain way to their male counterparts, and talking a certain way that seems very sexually seductive. There is no gender equality in these movies and this is why I believe directors of these superhero movies should stop portraying women as a sex object in there film, since it only influence sexism onto our culture impacting beliefs about gender roles and creating an unrealistic expectation of how women are supposed to look and behave. Many of the female characters in the film are regularly represented wearing outfits that sexualize them in order to garner an interest for male viewers.
There has been progression in terms of the private and public world’s governance of gendered roles and norms. However, the progression isn’t substantial enough that Virginia Woolf, author of “A Room of One’s Own” would be tremendously pleased with the way the private and public work sector has become. During the early 20th century, both the private and public worlds were very dichotomous and binary, wives and daughters were subjected to tending to the home, domesticated to raising and nurturing the children while the sons and husbands went out to seek a good education in order to provide for the family. It was only on occasion that women would have a solid education, which was typically in the arts. Women would be classified as emotional and
Superheroes are like everybody else. Normally people with normal problems and that includes issues with their siblings, if they have them. Marvel Comics has embraced siblings over the years and has a real liking for twins and half-siblings. This is the not the place to talk twins, at least not at the moment.
“ I am the pretty sailor soldier of love and justice, Sailor Moon. In the name of the moon, I will punish you!” This was the famous opening speech when the heroic Sailor Moon thwarts the villain 's plans, every girl and boy who was a fan of the anime or the manga knew something magical was about to happen. Naoko Takeuchi is the creator of the Sailor Moon manga series; the adaptation of the televised anime that featured Usagi Tsukino (Serena in the US) a regular schoolgirl that discovers she is a magical sailor guardian. A sailor guardian is a protector of their home plants, thus creating sailor scouts, like Sailor Mercury (Ami), Sailor Mars( Rei), Sailor Jupiter (Lita), Sailor Venus (Mina), Sailor Uranus (Amara), Sailor Neptune ( Michelle) ,
Gender roles in America can be described as a set of expectations between a typical men and women in society. Over the years women want to be involved more in broadcasting instead of just standing along the sidelines. Sport networks like ESPN over the years has been setting aside women during the games while men have the dominant role of commenting about the games since we in American culture view women in sports networks are there for sexualization. Therefore, ESPN has established gender characteristics in broadcasting between a man and women just like we do as people have established gender roles over centuries in America society.
What do Superman and your local firemen have in common? They are both heroes! A hero will be there to help others survive when they themselves might die. A hero is many things, but they are not a bystander. A hero would stand up.
Most female superheroes are the counterpart of a male version, i.e. Superman/Supergirl, Batman/Batgirl, Captain America/Miss America, etc. implying that woman cannot exist without man. According to Lavin, “the uneasy contradiction between strength and dependence (and in extreme cases, between strength and subservience) has characterized much of the history of female comic characters” (Lavin 94). When women were first introduced and included in the superhero teams, the heroin has softer powers in contract to the superhero who has stronger powers.
In Supergirl, Kara, who becomes Supergirl, was born with her superpowers. She firstly really uses them to save the plane her sister is on from crashing (“Pilot” Supergirl 13:40). After heated discussions about her powers with her sister Alex and Alex’s boss from the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, she has to fight an alien, who, after their fight, commits suicide (“Pilot” Supergirl 41:56). Kara’s superheroism is established slowly, but surely; the encouragement of her sister and her mother’s hologram help her to embrace her powers. With renewed self-confidence, she becomes strong enough to defeat the alien and decides she wants to be a superheroine.
