This didn't translate all that well to the blog, but we'll make do. Remember the little survey you took in class a couple weeks ago? Some of you labeled a list of qualities either feminine or masculine. Some of you were asked to pick the top ten qualities (same qualities) for a leadership position. The above graph indicates your responses. Yellow is the leadership line, red the feminine, and blue the masculine. The qualities from bottom to top are: achiever, aggressive, analytical, caring, confident, dynamic, deferential, devious, intuitive, loving, manipulative, nurturing, organized, passive, planner, powerful, sensitive, strong, relationship-oriented, and rule-oriented.
What I find interesting: Responses from various classes always differ somewhat in regards to what they label feminine and in how much value is placed on different qualities for leadership. The thing that remains fairly constant (sadly) is that certain qualities are overwhelmingly labeled feminine and are not ranked high for leadership qualities. They are: loving, sensitive, and nurturing. Guys are lucky to get one or two masculine labels in these categories, as is evidenced above. Surprises with this group of surveys include how highly "organized" registered as feminine and as a highly valued leadership quality and even more surprising is the same occurence regarding "analytical." Of course, you know when I say surprising I don't mean that women don't possess these qualities or that the shouldn't be valued. I think they are highly valued in leadership (though organization, practically, often falls to the admin assistant to the leader). What is interesting is that this survey (which came off a WS listserv) I'm sure was originally put together to illustrate how the qualities that our society deems feminine (and teaches women to value) are not generally highly valued in leadership. But analytical (associated with math and science) is not generally gendered feminine. So maybe culture is changing? What do you think?
What do you notice in the results? Are you surprised by any of them? Can you draw any conclusions from them at all?
On another note: We missed getting to talk fairy tales today, so we will on Monday, but to get you started here are some videos relating to the Dances with Wolves article and to fairy tales in general:
How can you relate these images, and the words of the song, to Little Red Riding Hood? To fairy tales in general?
And about
Barbie:
Here are two links to follow that are interactive sites featuring dolls like Barbie:
Barbie.com
Miss Bimbo
Register and play and come back and talk about what these dolls can do and in what ways they are related or not related.
Why doesn't the above Barbie really exist? What other barbies would you like
to see? After reading all the readings on Barbie, how do you feel about her? Did she influence your life growing up? In good ways? Bad ways? Share your own Barbie stories. Or maybe GI Joe or even Ken?The picture below is an ad in the UK for HIV awareness. It reads "He hasn't got the balls to talk about HIV."
I think that it is very silly that most people think that math and science are aimed at men. I am more interested in math and science than english and literature. Sitting in my math and science classes at school i feel that there are an equal number if not more girls in my classes than males. My biology class is predomonitely composed of females. This breaks the steryotype. Also every doctor, dentist, or surgeon i have visited in my life has been a female, and they are obviously good at math and science. Obviously i am only one part of a huge spectrum of people but i think that the stereotype is broken in my experience. I hope that the culture is changing to put males and females more evenly distributed along this spectrum, but i think that in analytical data collecting it will take a long time to capture these changes.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the little red riding hood videos i think that it funny how pretty and cute little red riding hood is portrayed as. It is almost showing that she is desirable and that the wolf is not at fault for wanting to lure her in. In all fairy tales the damsel is distress is an attractive person that people may relate with wanting to mlure in and take hostage or be jealous of.
In the barbie websites they can do physically anything they want to their plastic bodies. You do not see the elderly barbie because the makers of barbie want these dolls to be role models for the young generations playing with them. By making an elderly or "mother" like doll they would skip the young generation and would have noone to target their product to. They also want the barbie to physically be attractive to these young girls and the elderly one would not.
Barbie did not influence my life but i can see how she would have influenced other girls lives. People have always told me the research on barbies body would make her unreaslistically skinny with boobs so large that she wouldnt be able to stand. This is not me at all. Other girls though took to heart how she looks and i feel that this is one of the many reasons that eating disorders are so plentifull in our nation.
MC
Looking at the graph, we have considered men aggressive and powerful, while women are viewed as being passive and relationship oriented. I think that most gender stereotypes are unconscious. In our reading of Invisible Knapsack, the author mentions that sometimes caucasians are unaware of racial discrimination because they are not the ones being judged. In the same way, men do not understand women's studies because they are not the ones being oppressed. Because of ideas that society has forced upon us, we unconsiously judge other based on what? What we (as society) believe to be normal.
ReplyDeleteFrom the fairy tale readings, I noticed that the woman is always in need of a strong male hero. The video above is humorous because it illustrates that there is a woman luring in the "big bad wolf". Who knew that a fairytale could be sexual?
When I was younger, my sister and I played with barbies and when Christmas came around we picked out our favorite barbies that my mom would find at the stores for us. She always said how stressful it was when she couldnt find the barbie we wanted. There were so many choices, each built the exact same way just wearing different clothing. Every barbie now is skinny and wears slightly provocative clothes. These barbies are the ones that seel because they are role models for even the youngest generations. The elderly barbie and overweight barbies have been made, but they do not sell as well because they are not what the younger generation views as "beautiful".
AR
From our class survey and even the online test I think that times are changing and that math is not always placed with men and literature is not always placed with women. Personally I am a woman majoring in the science field and most of my classmates are women, with there only being about four men in my class and about 11 women. So I find the biases about women not being good a math behind the times.
ReplyDeleteFor the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale I agree with the first post above. That Red Riding Hood is looked at as if she is desirable and it is not the wolf is not to blame.
There were a few things that surprised me in the graph. It really surprised me the low scores of men on loving, nurturing, and sensitive. In my opinion, when thinking about a "real man" these are three characteristics they must have. It also surprised me the totals for men and women regarding rules. The feminine score was a 9, while the masculine score was a 29. Personally I feel these numbers for both sexes should be both high and closer together for both sexes. It was also surprising to see that men had three zeros, while women had no zeros.
ReplyDeleteThe depiction of werewolves, vampires, or other monsters and their victims in fiction seems to be used as an analogy for sexual assault. I'm a Harry Potter fan so watching the videos about Little Red Riding Hood reminded me of the werewolves in the Deathly Hallows, specifically the scene where Harry, Ron, and Hermione are captured by the Death Eaters, but Hermione is given to the werewolves because she was "delicious" and "pretty". The whole scene seemed very rape-y to me. There's also the werewolf who really likes children, and even among the Death Eaters, he's considered particularly disgusting, similar to how pedophiles in prison are considered scum by other inmates.
ReplyDeleteIt is actually frustrating to me to read that the survey was probably designed to show that qualities in women are not generally ones in high leadership positions. Women can have the same qualities and do the same things as men if they work at it. I have always had very high expectations for myself and I feel that just because maybe society doesnt see me being a leader because I am a woman is not going to stop me.
ReplyDeleteThe Chanel commericial I had seen before. I think it was actually a good commercial from a marketing point of view. However, I think it is funny that they relate expensive, rare perfume with little red riding hood somehow making it seductive. I was surprised that they didnt make the wolf a man. I think this meetaphor of using red riding hood in a seductive manner is everywhere and I actually dont understand it.
The barbie website was actually pretty fun. I used to go on the website and play games when I was little. I even had another computer game where you could go to all parts of Barbies house and decorate the rooms give her clothes and makeovers and make her have parties and everything. I think it is interesting how the entire thing is pink and purple and has glitter and flowers. This is what little girls like to see. I think its funny how you can make her cook and clean and look pretty and do her hair and makeup however you want it. This gives girls the ideas that the perfect woman always looks pretty and cooks and cleans because little girls look up to barbie.
I agree a lot with the second person, they said that white people aren't aware of racial discrimination a lot of the time because they're not the ones being judged, and the same with the issue of men about women's studies. That's exactly what I got from the knapsack reading as well. But how can we expect men to know what it's like to be oppressed when they've never been? How can we expect them to understand when they've never experienced it? It's the same thing with race, it's easy to say that we believe in equality, etc. but when it comes to acting on it, we subconsciously come up with reasons to slow and/or stop the progress without even realizing it. It's really difficult to put yourself in someone else's shoes, especially a person struggling in ways that you are not, never have, and probably never will.
ReplyDeleteAlso I took one of the bias tests online and thought it was a very interesting experience. I especially liked one of the parts of the test where it has you sort dark skinned men and women and light skinned men and women to the right or the left and you sort them as quickly as possible. Then it gives you either pleasant or bad words and first you sort the pleasant ones in the white category and the bad ones in the dark category and you have to sort as fast as you can. Then everything is backwards and by the end it gets really difficult.
The results were somewhat surprising but very interesting, because you don't always realize the biases that you may have.
I think that some of the gender qualities are pretty accurate and some are way off. I beleive that men are more aggressive and powerful and that women are more caring. These are generalized qualities that men and women can both have. It doesn't seem out of place to say that a women is aggressive but it does seem weird to say that a man is caring. I think that it is dumb to say women do not have the qualities to be a good leader because some men don't have those qualities either.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Chanel commercial was pretty interesting. It took the little red riding hood story and added a twist to it. In the commercial the woman seemed to be the stronger character than the wolf, which is different from the story.
I think that Barbie that looks a little older does not exist because no one really wants to play with a doll of a fifty year old women. They want to play with the pretty blond Barbie. I grew up playing with GI Joes but I do not remember them very much. The only time that there was a Barbie in my house was when my brother gave it to me as a joke. I always thought Barbie was stupid and looking back at my GI Joes, they seemed stupid too.
I feel like older womens' groups would get all offended if they were to release a barbie who looked like the one in this post. There's just this whole stigma against aging these days - just as women aren't supposed to be ugly or larger than a size two, women aren't supposed to age. But how cute would it be to have Barbie's grandma, complete with knitting materials, milk, and cookies?? I would have played with her when I was young, especially since I had two Kelly dolls who needed babysat while Barbie and Ken got it on.
ReplyDeleteThe whole idea of capturing beauty and hiding it away that is a theme throughout fairy tales is so strange. I guess in Little Red Riding Hood it's more of exploiting beauty. But just think of Rapunzel, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty - all three of them were considered beautiful and cooped up so as to protect themselves. As if, given the opportunity, they would go sleep around with all of the men in town.
I think that in todays society women are becoming much more involved in Math and Sciences. I have taken many science classes here at OU and most of the students are women. I also went for a medical school interview and atleast 75% of the individuals waiting were female. It is still very interesting though that people believe women are not involved in sciences.
ReplyDeleteRed Riding hood has always been visualized as an attractive young woman being taunted by a aggressive wolf. It is funny to break down childrens stories into gender topics considering most of us have seen these as harmless anticdotes during our younger years.
Barbie is obviosly a physically unattainable image who can scew younger minds on the ideal body. It is amazing how her size is so nonhuman. I have to sit back though and look at how barbie is also a toy and that toys aren't supposed to be average people. There are no toys out there which are normal and this is not taken into account.
It's pretty funny to think that Little Red Riding Hood was/is a sexual story. The original version was much more entertaining, making the Grimm version seem like a lecture. I wonder why the Grimm brothers made their version about a naive, helpless girl who needs to listen to adults and be more careful in the woods. But now people's perceptions of Little Red Riding Hood are reverting back to the original. People make her character into a sexy Halloween costume or runway shows use her costume to make the models sexier.
ReplyDeleteAnd although Barbie is misinterpretation of the female body, it's interesting to note what the Barbie "spin-offs" are like. Take Bratz for example. I think they are worse than Barbie, the creators somehow made those dolls more materialistic and narcissistic that Barbie. Thank god Bratz Dolls got discontinued. Miss Bimbo is another awful spin-off. This phrase, taken from the Miss Bimbo Web site, does not make sense to me: "Find a fun challenging job to pay for your needs - all the clothes an independent Bimbo could possibly want a nice pad and nights out with friends". The word bimbo is just so degrading. No one would get a good job being an advertised Bimbo. It's an insult to successful women everywhere.
Even though I do not agree with the answers to the survey above, I am not at all surprised by them. I think it's great that we as a society are changing at least a little bit in some of the stereotypes that we are placing, but we have a long way to go.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lauren. I found the Bimbo dolls insulting and a horrible doll to advertise to young girls. I don't understand why every "independent" barbie doll spin-off has some negative name like "brat" or "bimbo".
I really kind of liked the old women Barbie. That Barbie would never exist, but if it did I'm sure that the old lady would have had plastic surgery and botox that she paid with the money that she earned independently.
I found it surprising that many people put traits into the stereotypical femine and masculine roles. I put them equally important on both men and women.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of Barbie, I always found her annoying. Even when I was younger and I actually owned Barbies I would always be finding ways to make her different. The website was equally disturbing because it said barbie is every girl but all except one cartoon was white and blonde. When I went to the page to design my own clothes the model was the barbie body; small waist, big boobs, long legs, and long blonde hair. It's like only this girl can wear these clothes and look this good; not realistic. As for babrbies I want to see exist, maybe more anatomically correct, to show girls it's okay to look different from societal views on what's attractive.
I don't find it very surprising that the majority nurturing to be a feminine quality. As well as strong being more of a masculine quality.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the little red riding hood video I find it to be bothersome that it said "Little Red Riding Hood I think that I should walk with you for a while", implying that women are incapable of walking somewhere by themselves. The second video just proves the point further that beauty for women is incredibly consumer oriented. And of course she has some twisted sex appeal, as usual.
I think the results from the survey are interesting considering the main words that characterize a leader. Some of the words are characterized mainly as feminine or masculine which some people just look at and agree with. But, if you think about what each word means it doesn't necessarily resemble that gender. Who says that women are the perfect 'planners' or the most organized? I think the survey was very informative and it's unique to see what other people my age think about each word.
ReplyDeleteThe Barbie website was very stereotypical to girls including superficial resemblences to the perfect woman. The games included on the website can be entertaining but lead a young girl to want the perfect outfit, hairstyle, and body that is perfected on the Barbie webstie.
After looking at the survey results, I'm inclined to think that the "analytical" item is simply a statistical outlier. I don't wish to sound cynical, but I wonder how much of the increase of women in math and science classes is simply a matter of numbers - there has been a higher number of women in universities lately, and that could skew the perception. As far as women being seen as nurturing vs. leaders, one only has to look at women such as Hillary Clinton or Martha Stewart to note the discrepancy...Martha was lambasted for her role in illegal trading, and while I don't wish to argue the point, the fact remains that many male businessmen do the same thing every day and it is presented as "business as usual." Hillary was given a double standard of acting too "manly" but then not acting "feminine" enough. The results of the survey reflect the prevailing thought.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Little Red Riding Hood, I always found it interesting how sexualized that particular fairy tale becomes. I rarely see "sexy" Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty costumes, but LRRH is a constant. In reading the Dances with Wolves article, some of that was explained. I was not surprised at all to read of the French ad for whisky and the "virginal" white-hooded girl.
With Barbie, while I am grateful to Mattel for fighting for their copyright and getting those detestable Bratz dolls off of the shelves, I have to laugh a bit because both sets of dolls present a skewed body image. It's 6 of one, and a half-dozen of the other. I was actually shocked when I scrolled down and saw the elderly barbie, and wondered when that particular "art doll" had come out, and was disappointed when it didn't exist. I did play with Barbies as a girl, and my children will probably play with them, but I also remember playing with my stuffed animals moreso than the "realistic" dolls.
the graph seemed to be what i expected to see. i think when people are taking it they are kind of answering with what society tells them to say, so i dont know how accurate it is.
ReplyDeletethe barbies concrete the fact the society thinks that women with small waists, big breasts, etc is ideal. i think its sad that such a big company like barbie has yet to make popular more average looking dolls..
I feel that the graph represents several typical gender stereotypes. For example, the fact that women are more nurturing, I do not necessairily agree with. I feel that society sets up certain conventional ideas and that these roles are completely learned, not inherint. If the genders were reared more equally I feel that the chart would look very different.
ReplyDeleteI think that Barbie should be more diverse and definately promotes the beauty myth. The fairytale readings were interesting because they illustrated how women are either depicted as a damsal in distress or a temptress who is asking for it. Either way, I found it interesting about the "pretty woman" phenomena, how the women were 'saved' and essentially did nothing themselves to better their situation.
Grandma Barbie doesn’t exist because she does not represent the ideal woman to most of the public. For young girls Barbie represents who they want to become so a grandma Barbie would not be popular because it’s not what little girls dream of becoming. Older women are not valued as much as young women and this is why our culture is so obsessed with looking young and getting plastic surgery. I would like to see different multicultural Barbies that don’t just look like the White Barbie with darker skin. I also want to see Barbie have a more realistic body so little girls won’t think they have to live up these ridiculous standards. Before reading all the articles I never considered Barbie’s effect on girls. Barbie didn’t really have that much of an influence on me I didn’t play with Barbie’s too much I preferred sports.
ReplyDeleteI think the hidden biases tests were not very accurate the results seem to rely more on coordination and the order of how the ideas were presented.
Ya it's sad that barbie's are all bimboed out but it sells, I'd like to see the marketing campaign strategies to sell "Average Looking Barbie." I'm not saying it wouldn't sell but it is not in Mattel's interests to try. Same with the "Grandma Barbie", funny idea but what Grandma wants their grandchild playing with a little version of them.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with the fact that Barbie needs a new look, hopefully it will come soonre rather then later.
I think people read too much into simple toys. The company simply made a toy to try to appeal to girls. That doesn't mean that's the way society views the ideal woman. It's just a toy. When girls are playing with it do they really think, wow this is what I have to look like when I grow up?
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at how low men scored in being sensitive and nurturing. Those are really key qualities in the man I'm looking for. I think I speak for most people when I say that I don't want an aggressive man dominating everything. Those are traits that make a good leader and if people don't recognize that, then there are definitely going to be consequences that arise.
ReplyDeleteAs for Barbie. I have to say that I really enjoy her I don't have a problem with the way she looks. I feel I have a very realistic grasp on reality and what the average woman looks like. Barbie is simply a fun way for kids to exercise their imagination and to act the world as they see it through dolls that are relatively life-like, unlike Cabbage Patch dolls which are just nasty and so are the newer Barbie imitators such as Bratz.
RC
Regarding the chanel commercial featuring a Red Riding Hood character...When I first saw the wolf I thought that eventually the girl would be running away. The characters were almost flipped since red riding hood had power over the wolf. With one look and wave of her finger he obeyed. Also as discussed in the Dances with Wolves article, the image of Red was sexualized and almost irresistable to the wolf, since he howled in agony when she ran out.
ReplyDeleteThe graph looked pretty gender stereotypical. I think this is what qualities we have been taught that men and women should posses since we were little. In reality I think these qualities are more equal. If we were instructed to think about specific people, or even ourselves, I think these averages would be much more even and true to life.
ReplyDeleteI think the IDEA of Barbie is empowering to little girls, however I'm not sure their execution was perfect. I like that she isn't married and has many career options, but Barbie should be revamped. Pink should only be one of the color options, she should be relatively proportional to a real human, there should be different race Barbies that don't have white features. Barbie should take a poll!
I don't think math and science should be stereotyped to a certain gender. Being a women, I find nothing wrong with the fact that I prefer math and science over English and literature. I also know of a lot of men who prefer the opposite.
ReplyDeleteAs for Barbie dolls, I absolutely loved them as a kid. One of my favorite things to do would be to dress them all up, but I never noticed until now looking back on it how provocative the clothing I had for them were. But I also feel that people take qualities of toys such as Barbie way to seriously.
Just a comment to clear up something in my original post.
ReplyDeleteThe survey was not meant to assert that women could not possess leadership qualities, or that there are essential masculine and feminine characteristics. Rather, it was meant to show that we devalue the characteristics we as a society label feminine. To complicate that, not only do we label them that way and devalue them, but we raise women to see them as virtues and to play those roles (the nurturing mother, the bearer of emotions) while we raise men to admire the "leadership" qualities more. So, by this account women are in a double bind. We are told/raised to be feminine, which includes being emotional and nurturing (not that these are bad qualities), and then these qualities are systematically devalued in society, and not considered leadership qualities. So which children are being raised to be leaders in society? And which adults generally are? This does not mean women cannot possess "leadership qualities" but it does call into question why we value certain characteristics as leadership qualities over others. Certainly being compassionate and nurturing could be valuable in a leader too. Right?