The hard thing about recognizing sexism in our society is
that you cannot turn off seeing it, even when it is really really inconvenient.
For me this happened when I was babysitting for two adorable little boys
on Saturday night. I have been
babysitting for this family for around two years, and the boys are ages five
and seven. The first incident occurred when
we were watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not going to lie, a show that I
have never seen before). The turtles’
female friend (no idea what her name was) is a reporter. In the episode we were watching, she has to
leave to a reporting gig to help out her turtle friends. As she is leaving, the screen pans to her
male co-reporter as he goes “Ugh female reporters are the worst”. Not only does this generalize and stereotype
all women, it puts a very negative frame on them.
The next incident occurred when we were reading a book
called “The Day the Crayons Quit”. On
the whole it was a very cute book with the premise that the crayons are quitting
for different reasons and writing letters to their child to let him know
why. For example, the blue crayon quits
because it is so tired of being used so much to draw the sky and water. Want to know the reason the pink crayon
quits? Because the boy does not use it because it is such a girly color. If this was pointing this out in a
constructive way, I would not have a problem with it, but it did nothing to
correct this issue. I turned to the boys
I was babysitting and asked them if they felt the same way. They strongly agreed.
On the whole, my evening really brought the point home that
our youth are programmed with the gender roles from such a young age.
This is so true! along with these incidents, I feel like our society think babysitting as a "females" job and usually refuse to offer it to boys. I think our society needs to start stereotyping jobs and open them up to all genders.
ReplyDelete"'The boys don't use it". A big problem that teaches that girls wants validation from boys in order to feel important and useful.
ReplyDeleteLike we discussed in class before, crayons and colors in general have such a stigma associated with them. There are "masculine" and "feminine" colors. I remember pink being my favorite color when I was younger because not only did I like it but I thought it had to be. Then blue was my favorite color because I wanted to be a tomboy. Now, at 21 years old, I can safely say my favorite colors are blue and pink without thinking that I'll be too feminine or too masculine.
ReplyDeleteIt's really ironic that pink has been generalized as a feminine color. In the 17-1800's, it was actually considered masculine for babies because it's really just pastel red. Blue was feminine because it was "calmer and cooler." Not only does this prove how societal gender stereotypes are, but how fickle and liable to change they are as well. It's actually really stupid that colors are gender specific because they're all naturally occurring...
ReplyDeleteBy the way, studies conducted in an all-male prison have shown that seeing the color pink for long periods of time actually raises an aggression level, just like the color red would. How "feminine" is it now?
I think this is a very interesting thing because it shows how much children are just trained to think these things from such a young age that they never even end up thinking anything of it and trying to challenge it. I think this norm is sad and should be changed, however, I don't know how society could go about doing this.
ReplyDelete