The Female Gender Roles I Was Exposed To

Parents, school life, and mass media all have big impacts on gender socialization in children. But more and more parents are leaving the traditional mold of pink clothing for girls and blue for boys, there is an influx of gender neutrals, and we are seeing more casual views on gender and gender deviance. With a slightly softened view on gender coming from parents and teachers and more and more focus on technology and entertainment, I believe mass media is now the most powerful gender socialization tool in small children.

Children spend a large amount of time in front of the television set. I want to explore the television shows and movies I watched as a child and discuss the gender messages I received from them.

Up first is Power Rangers. There’s the boy rangers who wear green, red, and blue. Then there are the girls who wear pink and yellow. There were also rangers who wore black, white, and orange (also boys). It’s interesting how outnumbered the girl rangers are. It’s also interesting that they wear traditionally “girl colors.” When I was looking up google images of the Power Rangers, trying to reacquaint myself the show, I found this image:


Notice how the two girls are positioned differently than the rest of the rangers. Although they are all dressed the same, this immediately sets them apart from the males. Their poses also seem to draw attention to their feminine figures. Historically, the two female characters were seen as less tough than the boys. I remember boys scorning them for being wimps.

I will admit that I was a Star Wars junkie as a child. My father had me watch all three of the original films before preschool, and I ate them up. Gender roles are very distinct in Star Wars. The main male characters are Jedi--the physical and mental elite of their world. Women play a minor role. There’s Aunt Beru who gets murdered before she’s had five lines. There are scantily clad random female dancers just there for decoration. The exception is Princess Leia. She is actually a strong female character with a brain and attitude. But does she get to be a Jedi? Nope. Despite the fact that her father is one of the strongest Jedi in the universe or that her brother is the Chosen One of the Jedi, no one mentions giving her any training. Sure, she gets a blaster, but she doesn’t use it very much, because she’s always busy waiting around to be rescued by the males.

When I was eight, the new Star Wars movies started being released. It seems like the sixteen year gap between the two trilogies would bring about some kind of new representation of females, but no such luck. Enter Padme, the wife of the future Darth Vader, mother of Leia. She seems to be pretty strong willed. She doesn’t get a lightsaber, of course, but she’s pretty handy with a gun. Sure, she needed to be saved by the guys a few times, but she also did some things without their assistance. And then, she dies. Why? Because her husband went evil and “she just didn’t have the will to live anymore.” What? Since when was she completely dependent on him? I will mention that there was one female Jedi in the new trilogy. She had something like a thirty second screen time, she was an alien, and she spent that thirty seconds dying.

On a slightly unrelated note, when I was little, I would play Star Wars with the boys who went to my daycare. I always wanted to have a lightsaber, but they never let me. I always had to be Leia, and she couldn’t have a lightsaber because she was just a girl. Thanks, George Lucas.

I also spent an enormous amount of my childhood watching classic Disney movies. Could there really be a more negative gender image for children to be consuming? Without fail, there’s the girl (probably a princess) who has this really terrible life. You know, she has to clean for her evil stepmother/stepsisters, she feels trapped in the palace life with her pet tiger and wants to explore the city, she has to swim around all the time and she’s sick of it, she’s too beautiful and it’s pissing off the queen, or maybe she’s just been asleep for a very long time. And then you have the man. He swoops in and does romantic things. The two dance all night and then he puts a shoe on her foot, he takes her for a ride on his magic carpet, he loves her even though she’s mute, he rides in on his white horse and informs her that he loves her even though he’s never seen her before, or he uses his lips to end her slumber. There’s always the idea that the women are completely helpless and need saving.

Cinderella needed someone to tell off her step-family for her and buy her things.

Jasmine needed someone to save her from being Jafar’s slave girl.

Ariel needs someone to save her from the giant octopus woman who wants her father’s power and her voice.



Snow White needs someone to save her from the evil queen with self-esteem issues and poisonous fruit.

Aurora just really wants to wake up and for the dragon to be gone.


Not once does one of these women take things into their own hands and save themselves. That would be silly. Instead they cower behind the first one-dimensional man that comes along. And when the battle scene is over, and their man has triumphed, they get married immediately. Girls are seeing the overwhelming message that it is their job to be helpless, soft, and sensitive. Boys are realizing that it’s their job to be strong, aggressive, and tough.

So why are these messages generated? People feel uncomfortable when gender norms are broken. Making very young girls and boys see very specific views of the way they are supposed to behave is a way of assuring that gender norms are followed, making everyone happier and more comfortable. It’s a simple fact that humans like people to fit the pre-determined molds in their heads. In general, we are not comfortable with people who challenge what is considered normative.

The Resocialization of My Baby Brother

Resocialization: the process of learning new attitudes and norms required for a new social role. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/resocialization)

Upon going home for Spring Break, I discovered that something which had been in the works since the day I left had finally been finished. My brother had been resocialized.

My family structure is interesting because my father was born and bred in the South, as were countless generations before him, and he is very proud of this fact. His main interests are history, hunting, and Civil War reenacting. In short, he is a good ol’ Southern boy. My mom, however, was born and raised in Upstate New York. She is concerned with culture, classiness, and above all, the avoidance of anything that might compromise her as a redneck.

Growing up with parents on opposite sides of the spectrum was challenging. Every choice I made felt like taking sides with one parent or the other. I want to get into drama club rather than reenacting? One point for Mom. I want to read Jane Austen rather than practice my shooting? Two points for Mom. I want to wear anything but that camouflage jacket? Three points for Mom. This was my childhood. I even avoided the Southern accent in the process and ended up with my mom’s yankee accent. Having both the North and South so strongly represented in my home, it was like I got to make a choice which I wanted to exemplify. And I overwhelmingly chose North. That isn’t to say I’m not a Southern girl, because I do have some stereotypical Southern traits, but all in all, I’m more of a yankee than most South Carolinians I know.

My brother, Gareth, is five years younger than me, and since my father had lost me to my mother’s yankee ways, he was convinced to claim my brother for the South. He probably would have succeeded right from the start, but I slowed down his plan somewhat. My brother and I have always been very close, and I influenced him with show tunes and liberal ways of thinking. I frowned at the wearing of the Confederate flag. He came to me for fashion choices, and I taught him in the ways of clothing that do not include camouflage or “redneck boots.” He was doing as well as could be hoped with my father influencing him on the other side. I remember in particular, right before I left for college, my brother said to me, “You know, it’s not fair that gay people don’t have rights. We can’t tell them what they can and can’t do.” Had my father heard that, he would have blown his top, and I probably would have been grounded for a week for putting such ideas into his head.

My father was losing, that much was obvious. Gareth was much more of a Southern child than I ever was, but he had a healthy balance of yankee to even him out. And then I left.

At first, my brother complained about my father’s redneck ways whenever we spoke on the phone. I was mollified and convinced that he would keep to my teachings. However, by Christmas, my brother was spending a huge amount of his time outside shooting birds, squirrels, and anything that he could justify as a “pest.” I started to worry. But I had been quite the marksman in my day, so I told myself it was just a phase, and that his culture training and Phantom of the Opera would win out. But I knew I was losing ground when he got a banjo and began attending a local “picking parlor” with my father. I don’t care to know what goes on there, but I think bluegrass music is the main course.

When I returned home this past week, my brother lost no time in showing off his new camouflage coat and redneck boots, accompanied with something more of a Southern drawl than he had had when I had last seen him. Out of nowhere, it seemed, he had a pocketknife collection and was moving up in the ranks of his reenactment regiment. I despaired and asked where his other clothing had gone, and he told me it wasn’t “cool anymore.” He made a comment about “stupid yankee fashions” and referred to himself as “a Southern redneck boy.” But perhaps the most heartbreaking was when he made several derogatory remarks about homosexuals.

My father was smug, and for good reason. Somehow, in seven short months, he turned my brother into a smaller version of himself, erasing everything my brother had gotten from me and my mom. Gareth had been resocialized, and I hardly recognized the boy standing in front of me.

I understand that my absence changed the situation drastically. Without me there to keep him in check, my father had had absolute run of my brother’s upbringing. My mother would become offended when they made comments about northerners, but that just amused them and turned yankee-bashing into an acceptable family game. My mother had very strongly influenced me when I was a child, but I honestly think she gave up trying to do that with my brother when it became clear that he was not a reader. So when he was about 8, she stopped trying to socialize him in her ways, and I was the only thing separating him from the redneck life.

But what exactly caused Gareth to give up the things that he believed when I was around? I believe that wanting to connect with his dad was a huge factor in his turnaround. My dad works a lot, and the only way to spend one-on-one time with him is to do the things he spends his time off doing. Namely: reenacting, gun and knife shows, and hunting. In order to spend time with his father, my brother was immersed in a sort of total institution Southern boot camp. While spending time with our father, Gareth was exposed to his conservative republican beliefs and his other Southern tendencies. When Gareth regurgitated these things back up, he saw how happy this made my father. I guarantee that my father was much happier to buy my brother that camouflage jacket than the polo shirts he was wearing before. I imagine that emoting my father’s ideals quickly turned into an approval and reward situation. In order to please my father, Gareth took on his new role. Sure, he knew it would not please his sister, but with her 3 and a half hours away, she was quickly forgotten and was no longer an obstacle.

Social Deviance

When one hears the term ‘social deviance’ one immediately thinks of hooligans with cans of spray paint, bent on harming society. Well, I do, anyway. The word deviant has bad connotations in our society, but it actually only means something that differs from the norm. When you really put your mind to it, social deviance does not have to be inherently bad. In fact, every new idea--whether good or bad--starts out as deviant.

Take for example, the abolition of slavery. To begin with, abolitionists were seen as deviants, but today we consider them heroes and slavery is now deviant in our society. What about women’s suffrage? It’s bizarre to think that only ninety years ago, women were second-class citizens. Those who believed women deserved more rights were scorned for going against social norms. An idea is only deviant until it is accepted by society.

There have been plenty of social deviants who changed our world for the better. Martin Luther King stepped out against social norms and helped African Americans obtain civil rights. Our founding fathers went against social norms of government and gave us democracy.

On the other hand, there have been social deviants who wreaked havoc upon society. Adolf Hitler believed that Jews, African Americans, and homosexuals were genetically inferior to “Aryans.” Had this become accepted belief, Hitler would hold a position of honor in our society, and his hate campaign would be a social norm. Although Hitler’s ideas were not accepted by society, this does not make him any less of a social deviant than Martin Luther King.

It seems strange to compare the two, but both proposed change and both had ideas that went against the social norms of their day. It is only after society has accepted or rejected their ideas that these people are termed heroes or villains.

Same sex marriage is an example of an idea that is undergoing the change from socially deviant to socially accepted right now. A couple of decades ago, homosexuals were practically put in the same category as criminals. They were considered sexually deviant and looked down on. Homosexuals are still sexually deviant, because the majority of the population is heterosexual, but they are also becoming more socially accepted.

In conclusion, the term ‘social deviance’ means little more than something that goes against a norm. It can refer to an idea or person that is bettering society or one that is harming society. The fine line between these two types of social deviance is determined by society as a whole.

Links of interest:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deviant

http://libertarianism.tripod.com/derek06.html