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