A More Tolerant World

                What seems to stand out to me the most throughout these readings is the importance of tolerance. I think that with an increase of characters performing queer and fluid gender roles comes an increase in the rate of acceptance that translates into the real world. Not only do characters like those depicted in Glee continue to naturalize gay relationships, but they also show viewers that they too can live out a compelling counter narrative to stereotypical gender roles.

                While I was reading I was reminded of the upcoming documentary, Bully. Over 13 million kids will be bullied this year in school, which makes it the most common outlet of violence experienced by young people in the nation. Not only does bullying resort from sexuality, but it also transcends gender, racial, and economics as well. Again, the issue that needs to be learned is tolerance! Children and adults alike need to “queer” their perspective on gender and sex norms to stop this movement of harassment, violence and assault. One of the students featured in the film is a 16 year old lesbian from Oklahoma. Due to the fierce verbal abuse of her teammates, Kelby has been forced to leave the basketball and softball team.  Even with opposition from her entire town, she represents an inspiration to adolescents everywhere in that she stands up for herself and hopes to change minds in the meantime. It is through real life media representations of those like Kelby in addition to scripted roles like those of Kurt and Blaine that the public can become receptive to and identify with those performing gender in a variety of ways. I would only hope that the promotion and inclusion of gender and sexual diversity would decrease student bullying and increase overall acceptance of others.

Kirk Smalley, creator of an anti-bullying campaign insists that we must, “Go out there and find that one child, that new kid, who just moved to town, standing over there by himself, be his friend, smile, be willing to help him out when he’s pushed down, be willing to stand up for him. If we all do it together, we will change the world. It starts right here, right now.”  In addition, I would argue it starts with increased media representations of the LGBT community.  In an analysis by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) they report that for the first time in 4 years the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters on scripted primetime broadcast television is expected to decrease. How can we hope that the next generation will be more accepting of others when this report states that the “2011-2012 television schedule found that 2.9% of series regulars are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), down from 3.9% in 2010 and 3% in 2009”?

Shattering Fixed Gender: Who's Job is it anyway? The Icons in Mass Media or You?

Gauntlett does a great job introducing the idea of queer theory. He introduces and defines gender not a fixed identity but rather as a performance an individual can identify with at various moments. With gender being a performance we think about the behavior as a way of individuals identifying their gender rather than automatically being categorized and expected to do stereotypical things to identify in one of the two genders due to physical characteristics. We see the automatic separation of what it means to be a man and a women and anybody that does not directly identify with male or female are outcasts. Gauntlett proposes to spread a variety of non-traditional images and ideas about how people should perform their gender with the help of the mass media. Insisting that, “shattering the unhelpful mounds of ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles which continue to apply constraints upon people’s ability to be expressive and emotionally literate beings.” will break such patterns of masculine and feminine formation.

This made me think of music’s contribution to the shattering of fixed identity of male and female and in this clip we see African America musicians stepping out of the fixed identities and performing their gender as they please. Nicki Minaj does help shatter the performance of a female rap hip-hop artist by being one of the very few females in the genre. On the contrary she also confines to this fixed identity of a feminine woman as seen through her very hyper sexualized appearance shown in her music video Super Bass. But in this clip we see Nicki Minaj before her signing with Young Money and the way she chose to perform her gender was more on a masculine side which is a big change from how she identifies herself now. Minaj’s identity is dependent on her audience and success she receives. As a local artist she expressed herself differently and now in the mass media she is forced to sell sex. Can the mass media really help break this fixed identity? Or is it up to the people?

Fueling the Fire

Alyssa Rosenburg and James Poniewozik both argue that shows which are continually being targeted for women are in fact, targeted towards the wrong gender. While entertainment aimed at women viewers seems to be the crux of their critique, I am still left wondering why the issue of targeting is very relevant to study. If we are classifying a show as “for men” or “for women” doesn’t this just fuel the disconnect that exists between the two genders? To typify a show in one of these categories, man or woman, it seems to me that you only rely on gender stereotypes of what is “supposed” to appeal to each sex. I think that in labeling a media text it puts boundaries on what media people interact with. In another article by Alyssa Rosenburg she writes, “I don’t know what’s worse: the idea that women have to constantly submit to guy-defined culture, or that guys, by staying in their own enclaves, miss out.”
With majors in education and psychology and an upcoming job teaching elementary education I am contently taking the information we learn in class and trying to apply it to my future students. I am interested in how children interact with media and how this shapes their views on gender. I read articles such as these, and always end with thoughts on how television is affecting those that are probably not even targeted at all. I found a video on YouTube that interviews children as they discuss gender roles. Growing up in or society that creates such a HUGE polarization between men and women, and places such an emphasis on the roles of each gender, it is sad to watch these very young children as they are able to pick up upon these stereotypes. I don’t know how to combat these almost inherent ideas in children, but I am left to wonder if these feelings would lessen if we placed less energy on how to target a specific show or product to a specific gender and demographic.

Challenging Gender Roles is Only a Fantasy?

I really enjoyed Projansky and Vande Berg's article on Sabrina the Teenage Witch because it made me realize and understand things about the show I didn't quite grasp when I was a kid. When I watched the show when I was younger I loved Sabrina because I could relate to her but I also looked up to and admired her. She was kind of dorky but didn't really care, wasn't the popular girl but still had friends, she made mistakes but was strong enough to fix them. I loved that the show was a little quirky and weird but still relevant, and I think it took reading this article to understand why it was so successful.

One thing I didn't understand (or really couldn't because I was a kid) was how the show challenged gender roles. The article points out that Sabrina takes on many male roles, while her boyfriend, Harvey, plays traditionally female roles. I like how this was pointed out in the article because it made me realize how strong of a feminist character Sabrina really was. Even the small details like how she was good at math and science, or that she was the one saving Harvey from trouble, prove that a seemingly average girl could have really strong feminist qualities.

Another really interesting thing the article points out is how they relate the secret of being a witch to the struggle of homosexuality in adolescents. I found it really interesting how the way they portray Sabrina telling her grandmother she is a witch to be comparable to a teen coming out to their parents. This was something I wouldn't have been able to piece together when I was younger, but the show still taught their audience the importance of self-confidence and acceptance of others.

I was also really interested by the comparison of Sabrina's aunts Hilda and Zelda as a lesbian couple. They were at times concerned about what others would think of them living together, but the show also positively presented them as loving caregivers neither playing the mother or the father role.

Still I wonder if challenging these gender roles and presenting a young teenager as a strong feminist could only be done through the fantasy of a teenage witch. She lives in half a fantasy world, so would that suggest that two women can only live happily together in a fantasy world? Can a girl be stronger than her boyfriend only through magic? Is there another show that compares to Sabrina's character where magic is not used?

Reality Check

In reading Chapter 3 on “A New Paradigm” by Liesbet van Zoonen, I found the concept of distortion significant in considering the reality of gender. I think that our culture feels the need to constantly categorize and define individuals by gender for the sake of understanding acceptable behaviors, roles, and expectations and uses gender as the basis for how to interact socially with each other, but the fact of the matter is that gender is a social construction. As a social construct gender definitions vary from culture to culture and it is not always easy to distinguish between masculinity and femininity. So in saying that the media distorts gender, it is implied that there are points of criterion among all men or all women, which is not the case. This leaves the media to interpret and portray gender as it wants and, generally, this is based on exaggerated stereotypes.

In American culture women are stereotypically portrayed as white, middle class mothers and housewives. I think this portrayal is beginning to change with television shows such as 30 Rock, New Girl and Parenthood. Women, though still primarily portrayed as white and middle/upper-class, are shown in humorous, more intelligent roles contrary to years past. Parenthood specifically shows women in more realistic roles as balancing motherhood and work. The three main women on the show juggle both; Sarah is a single mother with two teenage kids, Kristina decides to go back to work after her youngest child is born, and Julia is the bread-winner of her family while her husband Joel is a stay at home dad to their daughter. The concept of stay at home dads or dads who are involved with their children are not typically represented in the media. But, contrary to stereotypes, a man's role as a father has changed from the stereotype. As shown by dad groups such as the NYC Dads Group men are embracing roles such as staying home with their children in the private sphere while their wives enter the public sphere to make the money.

The stereotypes of men and women are based on middle class white individuals from the 1950s and are not realistic today. In this day and age the roles of men and women are much more interchangeable, though, not always shown by the media.   

Van Zoonen, Women in the media, Gender

After completing Friday’s (1/27) readings, two main ideas stuck with me: the topic of gender as a binary concept and van Zoonen’s discussion of distortion of women by the media. We live in a society that labels and categorizes constantly and often in a binary manner – man vs. woman, masculine vs. feminine, democrat vs. republican, etc. I am currently taking Intro to Queer Studies and we just had a class discussion about the tendency to view gender in a binary manner. Just as van Zoonen talked about how (although it may be difficult to imagine) it is possible to conceive of a situation in which gender and discussion of binary gender categories is “relatively unimportant” (van Zoonen pp. 33). Such a place does exist! Egalia Preschool in Sweden is a gender neutral preschool. Girls are not expected to be girly and pretty and boys are not expected to be manly and rough. Here, children are allowed to be whoever they are, play with whatever type of toys they choose, and remain unrestrained by gender stereotypes.

An interesting point made by van Zoonen and one that we have touched upon in class was that many things about the portrayal of women and their lives are not reflected accurately in the media.Van Zoonen gives the examples that many more women work than are typically portrayed in the media, many real-life women are not the femme fatales that are presented, and many women have other wants than hearth and home. Van Zoonen also talked about distortion which refers to the idea that women are underrepresented in the media when compared to the 50% of the population which they actually make up. An example that I think illustrates this idea very nicely is the portrayal of women in the movie The Social Network. In this film, the women that are presented to the audience surely are not an appropriate or accurate portrayal of the actual women of Harvard. Stephen Colbert interviewed writer Aaron Sorkin. Starting 3 minutes and 40 seconds into the interview, Colbert confronts Sorkin with the question of why all of the women in this movie are either drunk, high, or otherwise "occupied" in a bathroom somewhere. While the question never really gets answered (other than a statement about the women in this movie being "prizes"?), Colbert gives us something to think about. Is this how all Harvard women are? Is this how all college women are? Is this how all young women are? The distortion of women in this film is a widely talked about topic and as the author of this link points out -- it may not be of interest that the writers of The Social Network altered the reality behind the story, but it definitely is interesting to look at how they changed the story and why and the link above addresses some of the changes. 

Television Women

Reading about television women as analyzed by Tuchman in the 1970s was a lot different than what my impression of television women is today. To be honest, I don't even think about the kinds of women I watch on TV, and I watch a fair amount of TV. Tuchman makes the point to say that women dominate the soap opera genre and I don't know if that's suppose to be a "yay women!" or a "seriously? soap operas?" I took it as the latter because I am not particularly proud of the women in soap operas. What does it say about our society that the only forms of television females dominate are shows about rich, catty, delusion women who cheat on husbands, kill ex-lovers, and are horrible actors? I think that is a terrible niche to try and 'claim.' I understand Tuchman's other point that in regularly syndicated television shows (in the 70s) women were only seen as housewives and mothers, "incompetent, inferior, and always subservient to men." (16) I'd also agree with Tuchman and say yes, I do think that is a problematic representation and that it could indeed affect young women's perceptions on who or what they should be.

So where does that leave us lovely women today? Well, relatively in the same pickle. As I run through all the television shows I know and watch I can't help but noticed a trend in the 'inferior' female complex. Even when not placed in the household or in the family structure, there is most often a male counterpart to the female lead, most often the one that the female pines over (if even for an episode or two), and most often helps solve the mystery or get out of trouble for the female. Even something as trashy as Jersey Shore depicts the men as more put together than the women. There are at least two episodes that focus on the women's inability to cook a proper dinner and the men having to swoop in to save the meal. Not only does this say "these men are better than these women" it also says "women should know how to cook." So even while you say to yourself "I'm never ever going to be like these people and I don't want any one else to be like these people" the show's message still reinforces the gendered roles we are all to familiar with. How come Sammie keeps getting back together with Ronnie even though he treats her like dirt? Why is it a huge deal with Snookie sleeps with two men in a night but the Situation can take two women back home at the same time, have sex with both of them, then call up his back up for a 6am breakfast and roll in the sack? The point being that while the period in which Tuchman was watching television might be a little outdated on first glance, all of those issues are still present, just embedded in different types of programming.

There might be some hope though. My favorite show on TV at the moment is Modern Family. I am utterly in love with all the characters on that show. And while I know I could equally argue how Modern Family reinforces gender stereotypes, I want to focus on how this show is not doing what Tuchman would expect it to be doing. I believe that all the female characters in this show are very strong and challenge gender norms (with the exception of daughter Haley who is really just there as a way to comment on how stereotypical she is). Claire, as anal retentive and bossy as she is, is the backbone to her family and is set up as being way more intelligent than her husband. More importantly, her place in the home is celebrated and portrayed as equality as important as her husband Phil's real estate career. Gloria is also the one in charge in her home and while more sexualized than the other women, she comes from a background of being on her own and independent and still acts that way with her partner. Daughter Alex Dunphy is another cool example of a twist on the notion that girls can't be educated and book smart. While her sister Haley makes fun of Alex's lack of social skills, we see very often Alex doing just fine and often question whether or not Haley is actually even literate. And we all know in life, Alex has the upper hand. This may not address the under representation of women on TV that this particularly section talks about, and Modern Family may not even be a great example of how things are changing. But I do think that when looked at as a show, women are sort of dominating the family structure, the comic relief, and have some commendable qualities that I wouldn't mind being, or my daughter being, or even mind having represented to a worldwide audience (I might also secretly relate to Claire's neuroticism and really enjoy that there is finally a character for me on TV, but whatever. That's for another time.)

How Romance Novels Relieve Women From Their Role as Nurturer

A thought that came to me as I was reading Radway's "Women Read the Romance" was that even if there are groups of people that do not believe that Americans still live in a patriarchal society, there are women out there who still feel the pressures of taking on the stereotypical and patriarchal labels given to women from the moment they are born. 

What are the kinds of roles that women need to play? We are the mothers and wives. We nurture and we are expected to be our own bosses in the home (not that I see anything wrong with that...). But Radway brings up a good point: She shows us through her research that women use romance novels as a means of "escape or relaxation (46)" from their everyday lives as mothers and wives in the home. 

How could their not still be remnants of inequality and patriarchy if largely married women between the ages of 25 and 49 (46) are using romance novels as a form of escape? 

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is taking a Women's Studies class at Denison for the first time. He asked me "What's the problem with men working outside of the home and women staying in the home and taking care of children?" My answer was that there is no problem if women have the right to decide whether or not that is the life that they want to live. In other words, if women have the right to choose what they do in life, then I don't see a problem with being a stay-at-home mom at all (I still believe it is the hardest job out there). But if women still feel the need to play that role, a point that Radway explains is the reason why women read romance novels, then there is a sense of being trapped in a role you did not choose.