Our chapter provides a plethora of information about gender in our society. We know that messages about gender and how to do or be your gendered self begin early in life. Various techniques are used – as a part of our socialization process – to ‘encourage’ us to conform to the gendered norms of society and to shame us when we do not. The article in your content folder on shaming describes one way the gendered norms of society are enforced. The videos below demonstrate how gendered norms are influenced and how these norms are messaged to us – through our social scripts – and sometimes without our understanding that these are messages about gender role conformance. One of the comments that is used at times to both put down the athletic ability of women and to label men who seem to fail to meet some standard of manhood is you “run or play or fill-in-blank like a girl” That makes it sort of a 2 for 1! Interestingly, both men and women learn from the message sets that go to both men and women. Often, when we teach about gender, we focus more on how women get the short power straw in society, but there is a whole set of messages that go to men about what to do and what not to do. Watch these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yMFw_vWboE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk8YmtEJvDc
Then, address the following questions in your post.
1. What are the primary messages that go to girls & women?
2. What are the primary messages that go to boys & men?
3. How do these messages inform young girls and boys and expectations?
4. Who enforces these norms – since each generation seems to continue the same ones?
5. Discuss how the self-image and feelings of fitting in and meeting expectations of women & girls and men & boys can be affected by these messages.
Make a 200 word post (numbering the questions as you answer)
