The Media
One social institution which has a large effect on the socialization of gender is the media. The media is the social institution which gives information to the members of a society. Print media includes newspapers, books and magazines, while TV, cinema, radio and the internet are called digital media. Three important parts of the media for socialization are news, stories and advertising.
News
Although the news tell us about true events which have happened, objective facts, it also gives information about how a society feels about these events, subjective opinions. When we see a story about a man being arrested for stealing, we also see that our society considers stealing to be a bad thing. In this way the media promotes social norms.
Because some of the information in the news is subjective, it is possible for different people in the media to have different opinions about a news story. In general the bosses of news companies will hire and promote people who have similar opinions to themselves, and so companies tend to have a set of values held by most of the employees. When these values affect the way companies tell the news this is called media bias. To see examples of this, look at any policy in the news and how differently it is reported in the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers. The Asahi has a left-wing bias and the Yomiuri has a right-wing bias. In reality, all people, and therefore all news companies, have some kind of bias. When we read or watch the news it is important to understand that this bias can affect how the news is presented to us.
News can influence gender norms in very subtle ways. For example, if a report says that someone is a "woman doctor", it suggests that a woman being a doctor is in some way unusual or not normal. It is very unlikely that a news report would talk about a "man doctor" in the same way. News can also influence norms by the choice of adjectives used for men and women. Women in the news are more often described by their physical appearance than men, which reinforces the idea that a woman's value is more based on how she looks than what she does.
Stories
We watch, read and hear many stories through books, radio, TV and cinema. Novels, movies and TV
dramas are all stories which can reinforce social norms. For example, there are many TV shows and anime series which show mothers as housewives and fathers going to work. Many stories show women as being victims who need rescuing by the male hero. It is very unusual to see a movie where a woman or girl is a strong leading character, although some movies like Pixar's Brave have opposed this trend recently.
An American cartoonist called Alison Bechdel created a test, called the Bechdel test to show gender inequality in stories. A story passes the test if two female characters have a conversation that is not about a main character. Only about half of movies pass the test, and in those that do often the conversation is about marriage or children. These trends in movies and TV reinforce the idea that it is men who do things and achieve things, while women's job is to be either mothers or a romantic prize to be won by the male hero when he completes his task.
Advertising
Advertising can influence gender norms in many ways. By showing boys or girls playing with a toy the company selling the toy is telling society which toys are normal for boys and girls to play with. This can in turn affect what boys and girls think are normal jobs for themselves in the future. For example, if a toy tool set is for boys, this tells children that a job which uses these tools like a carpenter is a man's job. If a toy oven is for girls, it tell children that cooking is a woman's job.
However, advertising can have much deeper affects than this. The most successful adverts don't just tell potential customers "buy this product because it's good", they say "you need this product for your life to be complete", "if you buy this product your life will be great" or (more often) "if you don't have this product you are a failure!" In this way advertising can influence societies' ideas of what means success and failure for men and women. In general it seems that for men success is seen as having a good career and making lots of money, whereas for women it is being attractive to men and having children. These differences can be seen in these two adverts from TBC.
The idea of pink is for girls, blue is for boys was originally an advertising strategy. If both boys and girls can wear the same clothes, parents don't mind giving their younger son the clothes their older daughter wore when she was younger, but if pink is a girl's color that boys don't wear, parents will have to buy new clothes for the younger boy, giving more money to the clothes companies who ran the adverts.
Lesson 4 articles
Article 4a - Workplace bullying widespread at fire departments, survey shows
Article 4b - Rising 'power harassment' scourge now affects 33% of workforce_ survey
Article 4c - Japanese women suffer widespread 'maternity harassment' at work
Article 4d - Still a struggle for working women
Article 4e - Sex harassment in the workplace
Article 4f - Japan to define workplace LGBT discrimination as sexual harassment
One social institution which has a large effect on the socialization of gender is the media. The media is the social institution which gives information to the members of a society. Print media includes newspapers, books and magazines, while TV, cinema, radio and the internet are called digital media. Three important parts of the media for socialization are news, stories and advertising.
News
Although the news tell us about true events which have happened, objective facts, it also gives information about how a society feels about these events, subjective opinions. When we see a story about a man being arrested for stealing, we also see that our society considers stealing to be a bad thing. In this way the media promotes social norms.
Because some of the information in the news is subjective, it is possible for different people in the media to have different opinions about a news story. In general the bosses of news companies will hire and promote people who have similar opinions to themselves, and so companies tend to have a set of values held by most of the employees. When these values affect the way companies tell the news this is called media bias. To see examples of this, look at any policy in the news and how differently it is reported in the Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers. The Asahi has a left-wing bias and the Yomiuri has a right-wing bias. In reality, all people, and therefore all news companies, have some kind of bias. When we read or watch the news it is important to understand that this bias can affect how the news is presented to us.
News can influence gender norms in very subtle ways. For example, if a report says that someone is a "woman doctor", it suggests that a woman being a doctor is in some way unusual or not normal. It is very unlikely that a news report would talk about a "man doctor" in the same way. News can also influence norms by the choice of adjectives used for men and women. Women in the news are more often described by their physical appearance than men, which reinforces the idea that a woman's value is more based on how she looks than what she does.
Stories
We watch, read and hear many stories through books, radio, TV and cinema. Novels, movies and TV dramas are all stories which can reinforce social norms. For example, there are many TV shows and anime series which show mothers as housewives and fathers going to work. Many stories show women as being victims who need rescuing by the male hero. It is very unusual to see a movie where a woman or girl is a strong leading character, although some movies like Pixar's Brave have opposed this trend recently.
An American cartoonist called Alison Bechdel created a test, called the Bechdel test to show gender inequality in stories. A story passes the test if two female characters have a conversation that is not about a main character. Only about half of movies pass the test, and in those that do often the conversation is about marriage or children. These trends in movies and TV reinforce the idea that it is men who do things and achieve things, while women's job is to be either mothers or a romantic prize to be won by the male hero when he completes his task.
Advertising
Advertising can influence gender norms in many ways. By showing boys or girls playing with a toy the company selling the toy is telling society which toys are normal for boys and girls to play with. This can in turn affect what boys and girls think are normal jobs for themselves in the future. For example, if a toy tool set is for boys, this tells children that a job which uses these tools like a carpenter is a man's job. If a toy oven is for girls, it tell children that cooking is a woman's job.
However, advertising can have much deeper affects than this. The most successful adverts don't just tell potential customers "buy this product because it's good", they say "you need this product for your life to be complete", "if you buy this product your life will be great" or (more often) "if you don't have this product you are a failure!" In this way advertising can influence societies' ideas of what means success and failure for men and women. In general it seems that for men success is seen as having a good career and making lots of money, whereas for women it is being attractive to men and having children. These differences can be seen in these two adverts from TBC.The idea of pink is for girls, blue is for boys was originally an advertising strategy. If both boys and girls can wear the same clothes, parents don't mind giving their younger son the clothes their older daughter wore when she was younger, but if pink is a girl's color that boys don't wear, parents will have to buy new clothes for the younger boy, giving more money to the clothes companies who ran the adverts.
Lesson 4 articles
Article 4a - Workplace bullying widespread at fire departments, survey shows
Article 4b - Rising 'power harassment' scourge now affects 33% of workforce_ survey
Article 4c - Japanese women suffer widespread 'maternity harassment' at work
Article 4d - Still a struggle for working women
Article 4e - Sex harassment in the workplace
Article 4f - Japan to define workplace LGBT discrimination as sexual harassment
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