Gender & Race Stereotypes

Blog Assignment 2 & Daily Reflection 4--

02-23-09 - 10:30 am.
NAS 1013, Dr. Kim Roppolo
Classroom experience
Racial stereotypes.
Class discussion about team mascots.
http://www.aistm.org/1indexpage.htm

02-23-09 - 10 pm.
My apartment - Norman
Film
The Stepford Wives
Gender stereotypes.
The entire movie.

02-24-09 - 7:15 pm.
Television-Cable, Fox
American Idol - Grand Theft Auto IV commerical
Gender stereotype.
Objectification of women.
Camera follows woman's rear around without showing her face.

02-24-09 - 9:30 pm.
Personal Conversation with a group of male friends
Joe's Taverna
Racial stereotypes.
Assumptions of a group of people that walked in based on their skin color.

02-25-09 - 3 pm ( from DVR)
Television-Cable, Bravo
The Real Housewives of Orange County
Gender stereotypes of women.
Money obsessed, housewives.

2-25-09 - 11 pm.
Television-Cable, Fox
Family Guy
Racial stereotype.
"Asian reporter" Trisha Takinowa.

2-26-09 - 4:30 pm.
Class discussion
NAS 3453, Dr. Robert Fields
Dale Hale Tower
Racial sterotypes.
General stereotypes associated with Native Americans.

2-26-09 - 7 pm.
Internet - Website
www.glade.com
Gender stereotypes.
Every dot you click shows a different woman, no man is on the page.

2-27-09 - 10 am.
Film
Sex in the City
Gender stereotypes.
Depicting Samantha Jones as "easy."

2-27-09 - 3 pm.
Film
My apartment - Norman
Save the Last Dance
Gender and racial stereotypes.
Only white girl in a poor African American school. All African Americans are good dancers.





I had always known that stereotyping in media existed from other classes, but once I had to sit down and write down every incident I came across I was shocked. Literally, in the majority of commercials, television shows and songs there is a stereotype. I'm sure I could have written down 20 just for the ones I've encountered today. By being so exposed to these stereotypes ALL the time, it's now wonder that these stereotypes are then carried into our society and practiced. One thing, in particular, that surprised me was how many commercials are directed at women. EVERY product dealing with things around the house that I saw portrayed a woman cleaning, etc. This is extremely different than what I experienced growing up as both my mother and father had an equal part in the cleaning and cooking. This only verifies the outlook many men, and perhaps some women also, have on the "American family" and the "American dream."

It was shocking to me how many gender and racial stereotypes I encounter each day through my friends and classmates. Before this assignment, or maybe even before my indulgence into this class, I was completely unaware of how many offensive things my friends say. Now, I'm not saying that my friends are bad people, I just think we're all a little oblivious to some of the things we say in normal day-to-day conversations and social interactions. At one point while hanging out with my friends, I told them about the assignment (so they didn't think I was turning into "that" girl in the corner writing down every conversation they were having). They were shocked themselves when I showed them the list that I had compiled while watching about 2 hours of television at my apartment. They didn't have in depth discussions about these people that they saw on various programs, they just made little remarks that were offensive. These personal encounters only exposed me to more about our society and how we stereotype others based on the color of skin, sexual orientation and gender without even realizing that what we're saying is potentially offensive to other people.

I was able to understand how the cultivation of images affects representation and individual perspectives of different ethnic groups and women. I'm going to use commercials as I discuss this, only because this is where I, personally, viewed the majority of stereotypes during this assignment. As I stated above, I was surprised by just how many commercials there are devoted to targeting women. They essentially say to someone watching that the role of the woman is to cook, clean and take care of children (this can range from doing the laundry with a specific detergent to buying the most flexible and fragrant trash bags to owning that minivan with the self-opening side door.) It's no wonder why these stereotypes are still very prevalent in our society today, maybe not as much as they were 4 or 5 decades ago, but they still exist. The only thing I noticed in regards to race in commercials is that white people were generally the majority. For example, I saw a toothpaste commercial where 5 dentists were recommending or not recommending it. Four out of the 5 dentists were white, leaving one African American dentist at the end of the table. He was the last to have an opinion and he was the only dentist that didn't recommend the toothpaste. Now, this might be irrelevant but I just found it odd that the "odd man out" was the African American man that was going against the grain of the other dentists. Ironic, or intended?