Blog #4 (Media Stereotypes)

The media's way of portraying men and women influences how we view each other day to day. Women are stereotyped as weaker, more emotional people. They portray women as catty, and extremely prone to cliques. When we see shows on T.V., girls usually have their "bf" and a close group of friends. When they try and branch out or another girl tries to enter the group, there tends to be huge issues. Either the new girl is a threat to the group in some way, or she just isn' t good enough. If you take the movie Mean Girls, Katy is considered a threat by Regina, so Regina takes her into her group to keep her from becoming better than her. The whole movie is about how girls treat each other, and how they allow others to think of them. This movie portrays high school girls of different race, and status levels thes stereotypes girls have been given by our media. Yet, we live out this stereotype almost everyday. Girls do form cliques, girls usually don't branch out to other groups, and no one expects them to. If you are a girl without a group in todays world, you are pretty much alone, and others don't try to make contact with you.

I think boys have it easier than girls do mainly because guys, from what I have personally seen and experienced, both in media and in reality, get along with anyone and everyone. We see shows where a guy from any particular group or clique can fit in with any other group. They are hardly ever rejected from the group and this is because they are a male. I realize this isn't always true in reality, but it seems to be extremely close to true, especially at Burnsville where there are cliques, but guys seem to fit anywhere they go.

Besides being portrayed as loose and catty, girls have slowely been shown stereotypes that regress back to older days where girls kept the house. Guys, jokingly or not, have been heard to say "make me a sandwich" to girls, as though its thier job. This is extremely disrespectful to women and to men, because thier are many male chefs in the world and girls are useful for other things besides doing what guys want them to. This has gotten much better, from what I have personally experienced, although you still hear about older guys who think women have one place and thats in the home. These men tend to be more distrustful of women, especially in the world of engineerig, and will sometimes be expect women to prove their worth. Women have to work that much harder just to be accepted as equal.

I also think that there is a pressure on guys to be more masculine and "tough" than girls. The media hardly ever shows men as being weak, although there are a few "chick flicks" that do. It seems as though guys think they have something to prove and are prone to challenging other guys to see who is better at this or that. I think this attitude that some males have tends to intimidate girls, and at times, it can be something that both girls and boys think of as normal. Girls, according to the media, like tough guys, so guys act that way to impress girls and keep themselves from being seen as weak. While girls, who may even think that the tough guys is intimidating or just stupid, will go along with thier act and encourage it, because it's "normal".