Gender Socialization Chapter

1.      Killing us Softly is a documentary presented by guest speaker Mrs. Kilbourne about advertising the image of woman. Kilbourne discussed how women are portrayed by being advertised as objects rather than a subject. Their bodies had to be perfected as to what the advertisers portrayed as “sexy”. The models had to have flat stomachs with round butts and silicone implanted cleavage. This put a lot of pressure on the young girls who were growing up and wanted to fit in that category of being “sexy”.

Kilbourne also mentioned that the models were posing as weak and easy targeted while male models were portrayed as strong and dominant. This is one way that posed the stereotype of women having nothing to say and being dependent on the man. This also applies to what I mentioned earlier about your girls who now not only are being pressured into looking “sexy”, but also are being taught not to have any opinion.

2.      A Call to Man was also a documentary by a guest speaker Tony Porter who spoke on the totally opposite matter that Kilbourne pointed out. Porter spoke about his teenager years growing up and living up to being a man. He presented a so called “man-box” that included all the attributed that every man should possess. He stressed that we raise teenage boys to feel no emotion, be brutal and minuscular and that it’s not entirely correct. He wanted to promote those values in the “man-box”, but also modify them and improve them so that future generation males can be less violent and show more emotion.

3.      Both of these videos discuss cross cultural differences between how society views and promotes both males and females. These topics relate to chapter on Socialization because these factors are being pushed and promoted for newer generations to be influenced on. By socializing and getting together young adults start portraying what is promoted to them and act that way. Socialization also led to developing these stereotypes about perfect bodies and behavior. Large amount of people must have felt that way and agreed upon pushing this agenda if they felt that way.