Gender stereotypes (where we see them the effects)

What does it mean to "act like a man"? in our society or what does it mean to be "ladylike"? Do all men act tough, strong, and not cry because they are naturally like that?, Do all woman be gentle, nice, cross their legs and weak because they are born with it? or do they act like that because they were taught in that way?. I'm not going to spend my time doing the nurture verses nature debate,but I just want to clearify one thing that media does stereotype a gender. In all kinds of media including movie, cartoon, magazines, newspaper, and etc the gender is continuously being stereotyped and we could see those effects from all kinds of media that surrounds us.

If you see in all those TV advertisement of household products, cooking utensils which gender is used? Isn't it most likely to be women?. On the other hand If you see advertisement of sports it is most likely to be men. It is not that only women uses house hold products or only men enjoys sports, but why does media shows us in that way? Media just purposely gives those images to our mind. In addition even if you see the famous olden cartoons like mickey mouse, ninja turtles, Flintstones those cartoons portray each gender so differently. male cartoons portrayed as more brave, strong, tough characters than female ones who are represented more as weak, vulnerable, useless characters. We should not forget that cartoons are mostly for kizs or young people, so when young people continues to see those images over time what would they think? Is it media who made us act as men, or women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIXUjzyMe0

On the other hand what make us think that certain behavior is not appropriate for our gender, have you ever done something that you think it isn't appropriate for your gender, for example if you're a guy you know it is not usual to cross your leg while you are sitting, or if if you are a girl you know it is unusual to open your legs wide while you are sitting. Then does people criticize about something that isn't appropriate for your gender? sure they will, even your closest natives like parent would criticize your actions. On the other hand would media criticize? I think this is more obvious answer because they are the main one who does all the gender stereotypes. Likewise because of that some boys or girls would had to hold back the thing that they wanted to do.

Sometimes there are cases where the criteria of gender roles are not followed, where women act strong, sporty and brave and men act weak, sensitive and vulnerable. But as soon as this criteria is not followed the people and media tend to criticize. Gays and Lesbian could be one of big example where criteria of girl should like boys and boys like girls is violated, media itself does not directly critize of them, but clearly they discourage people's opinion toward gay and lesbians. What I personally think is that as sex is not same as gender, it is people own free will to act out their gender. I'm not saying that people can be gays or lesbians if they want to!, but I just think that nothing can be pressured or forced. Even if you are a girl and you're very good at physical skills, it should be your freedom to do something that is related to physical skills, as that area could give more opportunities of success to you. What you do should not only be based on gender.

Baby X is one of big example we learned in class. Where Baby X learned to do both girls and boys roles in school, as we see first time children in school dislike baby X as it was so different from what they've seen. But eventually at the end most children favored X, where the girls started to follow something that boys do and boys started to follow something that girls do. In fact gender stereotype could be just one big boundary that media has created and we have just followed that boundary because it seems right. But we should remember again that everything is a construct and there is no neutral zone. We should be the one to decide what is right and wrong not the media.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq6Ct8IA5cY

How stereotypes in media impact our reality

As we are living in a mdia world, we tend to see many stereotypes by media. What do we feel when we see those stereotypes? or do we even recognize what is being stereotyped? If we carefuuly look around us, we can find tonnes of things that are being stereotyped, starting from gender, age, job, race, looks and position in family in fact media may not be able to exist without stereotype. Maybe we could unconsiously think that what is being stereotyped is our reality because we have heard it so many times, it is accepted myth. There are some examples: "All Asians are good at math", "All black people are athletic", "White people are higher class", these are some common stereotypes that media uses to make us see certain groups of people. It might be based on truth, and it could be justified by using statistics. However statistics don't assure anything about a person

The main concept applies again, that "media is our reality", as we always surrounded by media and we look through by media as our window, when media stereotypes it is obvious that we are the one who as the audience will be mostly impacted. Then how does it impact our reality? For example lets say a business company wants to hire an accountant who should be good at math calculations, and lets say hypothethically that they interviewed two people, one is a Asian guy and one is white guy with blond hair, both had same education at same university. we can apply two kinds of stereotype that "All Asian are good at math" and "Blonds are dum" when the employer has these kind of stereotypes in mind who is he going to choose? obviously it will be the Asian guy, but in reality is this true?There is no reason that the Asian guy should be math genius or Blonds should be dummer because of that trait. Also there is no fixed genetic prove that shows how different race of people act.http://www.helium.com/items/671652-the-impact-of-stereotyping
but if the owner of company really trust those stereotypes, the business would be dominated by the Asians then any other races. Likewise stereotype could impact our reality; such as job opportunities, how you being treated in society, the way we eat, way we dress and etc.

So Is stereotypes effect our reality in only bad ways? overall there are 2 types of stereotypes they are either positive or negative stereotypes. Stereotypes like Asians are good at math, black people are athletic are the positive stereotypes which gives the good images and perspective towards the group. On the other hand there are negative stereotypes like Blonds are dum, old people are smelly and dirty which gives bad image and perspective towards the group.So is this acceptable to allow stereotype to impact our reality in such way? I personally will say "no" because what I think that make person to be different from one another is the each individual's environment and situation rather than looking each people based on physical appearance.

We can apply the concepts here that "what is said is only half the story", even we have some specific information to certain group we stereotype, it is not everything we know about them, we only base on the knowledge that we absorbed from media. But even some steretypes are based on truth, there could be something more behind it. For example "Asians are good at math" but as many people know one of the famous mathematician in the world was German Albert Einstein, also there are many famous mathematicians from europe such as Blaise Pascal(french mathematician), Carl Friedrich Gauss(German mathematician). So can we say stereotypes are based on full source of information? or is it only based on half story?
see the video=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZd11Mcej4

Whether we like it or not media is still going to stereotype, and we will continue to see them, because stereotypes benefits the media. But it makes us feel limited and traped, so in order to fight those stereotype we should know who is working behind it, the media. "Whoever owns biggest megaphone wins" we should remember that most things are owned by one huge group and continues to give same message over and over again, there are no counter culture. We should be the one who should prevent media to impact our reality in certain way.

my media consumption

Every day in English Media class, I learn something new that is somewhat shocking and interesting. So far we have learned quite a lot of things about the media. However the key factor that I must not forget is that all media is a construct and thus there are no accidents in the media. When I heard "all media is a construct," I was surprised even if it wasn't something new to me. Every day while I was surrounded by media, I didn't really think deeply about its existence.In real life, we are all living in 21th century we are in a media world. So many thing we see, hear, do such as TV, computers, radio, newspaper and etc are part of the media, therefore we are all impacted by the media. Media influence what we talk about and it even influence our thoughts, this applies even what media tells is a false. At the very beginning of the course we learned about the conspiracy theory, which is a term that has come to refer any tentative theory. There are some famous conspiracy theory we did in the class: Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, 911 and JFK. I personally didn't know that any of these worldly famous events had the conspiracy theory, as most people know these were world's famous event and incident and most people believes it really did happen, why? For example for Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, how can we sure that Armstrong really landed on the moon even we didn't actually saw it, what is fact that create our beliefs towards these events. Isn't it the media? that why we trust that Neil Armstrong actually landed on the moon or 911 terror that WTC 7 fall down, why do we trust them?. Actually when I watched the conspiracy theory about the Neil Armstrong, there were many valid reason that justified the conspiracy. Therefore we can't 100% sure that media always give the truth, maybe it is only one version, essentially there are multiple truth and it is always affected by the bias. It just troubles me to realize this truth because, media is something we are living in most of the time and supplies us the most information and if this blinds us from the truth what could we really trust and rely on?
On the other hand recently this week miss Meret taught us 6things that we must know about the media:
1.As said everything is a construct
2.What is said is only half of the story, it means for example in some website there are articles that tells about the benefits of using ethane, but it doesn't really states the negative fact about it even there are some negative facts in contrast to the benefits, so what media states may not be all the information it should have, some of it might not be presented.
3.Media is our reality,our most common portal into world is media. For example when we think about the Africa, the common image that comes to our mind is something such as green grass,and wild animals. Even we haven't been to Africa that is the reality we know, but on the other hand there are some different images of Africa that we have never seen, such as high rised buildings that creates some image of developed country. So if media show only those kind of undeveloped side of Africa, we will never know the other side of image that is totally different as media is only common portal into the world that we can't see.
4.Everything comes down to money, Everything we see or read everyday has a price tag which everything costs money. For example, some of the advertising we see on the TV costs thousands and millions of dollar. So media basically is not something that pops out from nothing.
5.Whoever owns the biggest megaphone wins, The key word used convergence which is combination of all these different media into one operating platform. In media basically most things we see, hear comes from one voice. I learned in class that one of famous organization Time Warner owns almost every media, therefore we only hears and see from their side. This is mainstream media that there is no room for counter culter.
6.Monkey see, monkey do, We all believe what we are originally, totally free thinkers. We want to believe that our initiative is totally our own, but nothing is further from truth.As I learned from lesson it is shocking and surprising to see the reality of media. I want to state question that "What can we do" despite of this reality, can we reshape the media as we want to?. To answer this question I will have to know more about the media. As now what I know about the media is only cover page of the book.