Final Summary/ Reaction

This survey was very interesting to me! 20 people completed my survey and the results were basically what i expected. For example, the first question was," If you found out someone was having a baby shower and they did not know the sex of the baby, what colors would you expect the color scheme to be?" I assumed that most of the answers would be pink and blue but 12 people said green and yellow. Something else that surprised me was i asked what toys do girls play with and it was a free response, every single person said dolls. I was so surprised that someone did not say that, or said something different. I think these results will prove my hypothesis that children's stereotypes are formed by the environment that they grow up in.

Week 3 Blog

I have finalized my survey and i am getting ready to give it out. I made it on google docs so I might just share the link on my twitter to make sure I get a very wide spectrum of results. The survey has many different types of questions and i think that the results will be very interesting. I asked questions about jobs, colors, toys and even clothing. I think that from the answers I get from these questions, I will be able to prove my theory that the stereotypes children have come from the environment they grow up in.

Week 2 Blog

I have decided that for my project i am going to conduct a survey. In the survey i am going to ask questions about common things that people associate with different genders. I will ask about gender roles, jobs, colors and even clothing. I will give my survey out to 20 different people. The age group will range from 13-58. I think that the answers from my survey will show how people really develop into who they are because of the people they grow up with and the environment in which they grow up. I think that if I survey people from all different age groups they will all respond differently. Especially when parents show strong gender stereotypes there children will be raised with the same gender stereotypes. I think that this survey will show very interesting results.  

Week 1 Assignment

The method i choose to use was survey. In my last blog i conducted a survey about colors and i found the results to be very interesting. I think that if i become a little more creative in the topic of the survey, i will find that my topic is more interesting than i already think that it is. I think that if i conduct my survey in a different manor this time around i will get very different results. If i ask people from many different places the same questions i think the results will change significantly.

Survey says...

This week i went around and asked members of my friends and family about colors. I know colors are something that is very broad but the colors that people associate certain things with is very interesting to me. First I asked what their favorite color was; starting with the girls : 3 said pink, 2 said purple, 1 said green and 4 said blue; then the boys: 2 said red, 1 said green 3 said pink 2 said orange and 2 said blue. I found this very interesting. Usually when people think about girls, they automatically think pink, but in my survey, the most common color was blue. Similarly, when people think of boys they think of darker colors such as blue and green, but the same number of boys said that pink was their favorite color as did the girls. Then i asked the group collectively what color they think of when they think about boys 80 percent said blue, 10 percent said green and 10 percent said red. I did the same thing for girls with the group, 70 percent said pink, 10 percent said purple, 15 percent said yellow and 5 percent said green.

When people associate certain colors with a certain gender it is an example of a gender stereotype. They are stereotyping that specific gender with a color they think best describes that gender. In my survey i found the results to be very interesting. The information was almost completely flipped from what the majority of the group thought. I think that in today's society the colors are not as closely related as they used to be. For example when i was a baby my mom painted my room yellow because she did not know if i was going to be a boy or a girl but when i came she added a lot of pink things to my room. I think if i was born 10 years later my room would look very different the more neutral colors are being used for babies rooms instead of pink and blue, people are choosing green or yellow. I learned a lot doing this survey and i thought my results were very interesting.

Gender Stereotypes

This article is about the effect gender stereotypes has on children epically on television. Advertisers use negative stereotypes in commericals and tv shows and those stereotypes sometimes rub off on the audience that is watching the show or commercials. There is not much research that has gone into studying the effects of such stereotypes on children but it has been proven that it is only the negative stereotypes that stick with them. Although, the way that the media has portrayed women and men has changed a lot in since the past. The women have always been the ones to be staying at home in these very elaborate gowns (early 1900) but now they are out in the world working and keeping up with things that they would never be expected to do.

Women now have so much responsibility and i think the way the media portrays them, is actually positive in some ways. In the past, the thought of a single mother would never exist. Women were always relying on a man for all the financial support, and now women support themselves and there children on their own. However, I do not think it is right that certain people are targeted through certain commercials. Seniors being targeted in commercials for a reverse mortgage, or targeting the lower class in cheap beer commercials. I think that the media has a way of twisting stereotypes for there economic advantage.
Stereotypes in Advertising

Oxy Clean Commericial

While I was watching TV with my little cousins last weekend I saw this commercial come on the the Disney channel. In the opening scenes of the commercial, there is an overhead camera shot of a large group of people. The promoter says "see why all people trust oxy clean." When i was watching this with my little cousins one of them turned to me and said "wow Cristina look they are all girls!" She is 7 and she caught onto the little/ yet very important detail. This commercial really made me think. We sat down at the table and had a conversation about this commercial. There was one 12 year old boy and one 7 year old girl sitting with me at the table. The boy said to me " I think that there are all women because the moms are the ones who do the laundry."

This was very shocking to me because my cousin has very good manners and is very polite and yet he still said that women are the ones who do the laundry. I think by playing this commercial on the Disney channel was aimed at moms and there children watching TV together at night. My younger cousin brought up a very good point though, she said," what happens if you don't have a mom?" I didn't know how to answer her question so i just told her that if you don't have a mom your dad would pick up the extra slack.The boy laughed at her and said " I would never do laundry, i would make a girl do it, its what they are supposed to do." The stereotypes for women are portrayed very heavily on television and i think when children watch tv, they catch on to theses stereotypes and enforce them in their every day lives.

Blue Bloods

On Friday night I was sitting home with my mom and we where watching one of her favorite shows, Blue Bloods. This show is about a Irish catholic family who is heavily involved in the New York Police Department. Tom Selleck, is the son of the previous police commissioner and his children are all defectives and or police officers. He is thinking about retiring and they are at a family dinner talking about who he wants to succeed him. He has two sons and a daughter that would like to take over the position of the police commissioner. His oldest son who is played by Donny Wahlberg says that he wants to take over and he thinks that he is the most qualified. His daughter follows up that statement by saying what about me, then her brothers both say you cant be the police commissioner because you are a girl.

This was very interesting to me because I kind of understood where her brothers where coming from. Whenever someone thinks of a police officer they think of a strong man , not a woman. People think that the women aren't as strong and they wouldn't be able to handle being the commissioner.  If the daughter does eventually become the police commissioner she would be taken advantage of and people would think about the position differently. It would break a social norm and if they do make the woman the commissioner and i think it might motivate more women to  break more social norms that they would be less likely to do. The television we watch has a huge influence in our society. If they do take this step and make the woman the commissioner, we might see some changes in our society regarding the police department. Also, if people watch this show with their families, children will have a different outlook on what they can do with there life when they get older. Girls might be more likely to think about getting a job in something that was previously just a job for boys.

(if my hyperlink does not work this is a link to the entire episode, the scene is toward the end)
Men in Black

My Baby Cousin

My cousin anthony just had a baby boy AJ in november. My cousin and his wife are very protective over the baby. On wednesday night, I went to go visit the baby and it was the first time I ever saw him. My mom and I where sitting there feeding the baby when something very interesting happened. I had on a pink scarf, AJ kept pulling on my scarf. My cousin took my scarf away from him and handed him a very similar scarf but something was different, the scarf was blue. My cousin said "no pink, AJ take the blue." My cousin then continued to talk about how when he gets older he wants him to play hockey and football. Basically planning out the rest of his life according to what the gender stereotype is of boys today.

I thought this was very puzzling because i couldn't believe my cousin was so protective about the baby just holding my pink scarf. It is an article of clothing and if he keeps telling him that he can't touch anything that girls touch he is going to create a massive problem. I think AJ should be able to touch and play with whatever he wants to. If he doesn't open himself up to letting AJ play with all types of toys he will not be open to trying other things when he gets older.

Gender Development on the Internet

My second post will be about the development of children that I found on a website. One of the most popular toy stores in the world, Toys R Us. When you go onto the website there are categories you can choose from such as " Girls Gifts" "Boys Gifts" and "Categories." When you click on the boys gifts section the first subcategory is Action Figures, and for girls the first subcategory is Arts & Crafts. I feel as though the toys for girls are always in light colors such as pink and purple and the boy toys are darker colors such as blue green and red. The boys section consists of action figures and building sets while the girls side consists of arts and crafts and dolls. The boys toys are always very so strong and some times scary and the girls toys are very delicate and gentle, the way both of these genders are perceived to be. 

I think the gender stereotype is a major issue in the world today. One of the most common toys for a boy are Lego's and now the creators of this product are starting to create their idea of a Lego collection for girls that they are calling "Friends" In this Lego collection you have the ability to build shopping malls and houses instead of train tracks and large buildings. I feel as though this is a step in the right direction for trying to make the options equal for girls and boys no matter what their interests are. This might be far off, but there is a possibility there are more  women in the fashion industry and more men in the construction industry because those are the types of toys they played with when they were growing up. 

Toys r us
Lego Friends

Why did I choose this topic?

I chose this topic because the development of children really interests me. I originally wanted child socialization: technology but it was taken before I could pick it. I cant wait to research this topic and expand my knowledge about this topic.