Essay On Gender Role Socialization

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The type of judgement cast upon by society all depends on if we are male or female. Distinguishing a male and female apart according to the physical difference of the body is known as an individual’s sex. While a person’s sex is determined by physical trait when determining gender, a different approach is taken. Gender is based upon the way a person should act according to their sex. At an early age we learn the difference of male and female roles through school, family, and media, which is known as gender role socialization. Gender role socialization occurs when a little girl learns to nurture her younger siblings by following the example set by their mother. The major influential concept that helps us separate male from female is social construction of gender. Social construction of gender is when we learn gender roles through society and interaction with others. Typically, when society expects for men and women to play a certain role based on their gender nothing good derive from it. An example of a negative impact caused by gender roles expectations is sexual entitlement. When sexual entitlement is found in men they think that women owe them sex due to their manliness.
The documentary film “Killing Us Softly” was originally created in 1979 by Jean Kilbourne and was remade three times after that, the last time being in the new millennium. The film was inspired by advertised that Jean began collecting in the 1960’s that was based on what it meant to be a woman in the culture. She concentrates on advertising more than anything in the video because she considers advertisements to be a very powerful force of education. Her main focus in the video is what advertisements has to say about women. The film tells us about advertisements expressing the idea that what is most important about a woman is how she looks. It continues by telling us that advertising surrounds us with the idea female beauty. Jean explains that the” look of beauty” is clearly unrealistic, leading to guilt and shame in the women who fail to achieve it. According to the film “Killing Us Softly”, everyday women and girl measure themselves up to photo shopped girls in magazines, which puts a toll of their self-esteem. This documentary describes this look throughout the film to be thin, white, perfectly polished, groomed, plucked, and shaved. With these expectations being forced on women by society it is no surprise that so many eater orders exist throughout the world. The sad part is that the “look of beauty” is not the only thing type of advertisement discussed in the documentary that is degrading to women. “Killing Us Softly”, exclusively exposes advertisements that turns women’s bodies into objects, which is almost always one of the firsts step leading to violence against a human being.
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Right when you think it cannot get any worse Jean leaks information regarding advertisements that dismembers women’s bodies. Generally, when this occurs advertisements promote the idea of women having big breast making women with small breast feel insecure about their cup size. When this insecurity is cast upon women the only way they see out is to get breast implants. Once they get breast implants their boobs turns into objects of someone else’s pleasure instead of their own since it causes women to lose sensation in their breast.

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