LCKupke's Blog

Final Thoughts On My Web Portfolio

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:58:37 +0000

I have learned so much through this course about gender and how it is manifested within each of us. I notice gender in many of my daily activities now because of this course. As for the portfolio, I think I produced a successful project that solidified many of the gender concepts for me.

I went through every chapter that we covered in class and tried to find at least 1 artifact to represent a concept in that chapter. My portfolio starts off with artifacts that surround the understanding that gender is learned. We are molded into being a particular gender based on the interactions we have with our family, friends, teachers, coaches, the media, and many other people who affect our lives. Men and women are taught to act and/or communicate as either males or females. I then provide an artifact about Michelle Obama which relates to the how the media tells us what is important and shapes how we think about gender.

Next, I move into a discussion about gender in relationships. I learned that men and women develop different gender identities that make them express and expect different responses during communication. Men have been taught to display strength and independence in social settings which is opposite to a woman’s desire for comfort and connection. I also provide a personal experience about how females are socialized to smile to appear pretty and please others. Then I provide an artifact about personal space and proxemics, and another about power dynamics within my family. I also give an example of a couplehood. The relationships section of the course and my web portfolio have opened my eyes to why my friends and family act in different ways depending on their gender.

Ony of my artifacts is about cross-sex friendships and how a male is more likely to fall for a female friend than vice versa. After that I talk about how women value close friendships, which is something that is very important in my own life. I then provide 2 posts/artifacts regarding romantic relationships. I think I am most grateful for what I learned in this section because I now have a better understanding of why people in romantic relationships act and communicate differently. I feel like I understand the opposite sex more now, which in my opinion is always a plus.

Next, I move on to discuss gender differences in the upperlevel classroom and on the college athletic field. Personally, I have always noticed gender differences in these sectors, but now I actually understand why they occur. Then I talk about how gender affects males and females in the working world.

Winding up, I moved on to media and discussed how advertising, television, and film all affect how we think and do gender. I posted part of a movie script for a movie set in the late 1920′s. I used that to discuss both how the media influences us and how far women have come since then. So much of who we are as a gendered identity is based on what the media tells us.

My last two artifacts sum up two other main points about gender. One involves how females are encouraged to show emotion while males are taught to be tough and masculine. Lastly, I talk about how the media sets our agenda for what is important.

This entire experience of reading the book and other articles, writing papers, posting to a blog, and making a portfolio has given me a much needed understanding of how gender is expressed through friendships, relationships, acquaintances, and the media.

20. The media “sets our agendas for what is important” (Gamble & Gamble, 351

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:55:10 +0000

The mass media is constantly sending us messages that we unconsciously absorb and exhibit (Gamble & Gamble, 351). The media teaches us what is going on in the world, thus shaping our perceptions of the world. The problem with this is that the media often provides us with a false representation of reality, so their biases become our biases. One of the biases found throughout the media is the focus on how a famous woman looks and feels rather than her accomplishments (Gamble & Gamble, 355).

A biased media representation that recently demeaned women was David Letterman’s comments the other evening about Sarah Palin and her family. He made a comment about Sarah Palin’s appearance, typical of the media, by saying she looked like a slutty flight attendant. He then went on to make a crude comment about her daughter being “knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” Letterman targeted a woman of power by talking about her and her family’s sexuality in a derogatory way. It is wrong that the media usually focuses on the sexuality of women rather than their achievements. He went too far by calling a female governor slutty, and then talking about her 14 year old daughter having sex with a much older baseball player. When the media controls the information we see and hear, they are telling us how we need to look, behave, and what to prioritize as important, even though what they may be telling us is wrong or biased (Gamble & Gamble, 351).

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

19. “Women, in general, are more nonverbally expressive of their emotions than men” (Gamble & Gamble, 92).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:26:45 +0000

Females are reinforced to display nonverbal cues that are “affiliative, passive, and responsive,” while males are reinforced to illicit nonverbal cues of dominance, activeness, and independence (Gamble & Gamble, 89). Because of these social reinforcements, women are better than men at decoding nonverbal emotional cues (Gamble & Gamble, 94). From a young age, females are encouraged to express their emotions and pay attention to other people’s feelings, whereas males are taught to deny and repress their emotions. This adds to women being better than males at interpreting emotion and nonverbal cues. Geoffrey Canada says that boys are conditioned “to deny their pain when what they should be doing is releasing it” (Gamble & Gamble, 92).

Teaching males and females to respond to emotion differently has been going on for thousands of years. Spartan boys were taken from their homes at the age of 7 and trained to become soldiers. They were taught to endure emotional and physical pain without showing any sign of emotion. Spartan boys were hardened into strong, independent,non-emotional men because emotion was seen as a weakness (laconia.org).

laconia.org. http://www.laconia.org/sparti_h_1.htm

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

18. “History finds women having been denied a voice…” (Gamble & Gamble, 7).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:06:17 +0000

Women have come a long way since the first women’s rights movement began in approximately 1840 (Gamble & Gamble, 405). The women’s rights movements have caused a cultural transformation away from the patriarchal lifestyles that once dominated the United States. In 1920 women gained the right to vote, and the onset of WWII spurred women to start working outside the home and move away from traditional female roles (Gamble & Gamble, 406). In 1963 Congress passed the Equal Pay Act which protected employees from being discriminated against (Gamble & Gamble, 407). Since then, women have become less submissive and more assertive in demanding their rights as a citizen, and as a woman. But before the women’s rights movement really got off the ground, women were “denied a voice, disenfranchised, and not necessarily afforded educational opportunities equal to those of men” (Gamble & Gamble, 7).

The following script is from the movie Changeling set in the late 1920’s. It shows a conversation between two women who were unlawfully put away in a psychiatric hospital because they tried to speak out against the Lost Angeles Police Department. Their version of “speaking out” though was still unbelievably submissive to the male authorities; in the movie the character Christine Collins was constantly saying she was sorry to the police for questioning their authority.

Changeling script in the psych cafeteria (1928-1930):

CAROL DEXTER

This one client started hitting me,

and he wouldn’t stop. So I filed a

complaint. Turns out he was a cop.

Next thing I know, I’m here.

CHRISTINE

But how can they –

CAROL DEXTER

You’re kidding right? Hey, everybody

knows women are fragile, right?

They’re all emotions, no logic,

nothin’ goin’ on upstairs. And

sometimes, like when they say

something that’s a little, y’know,

inconvenient…they just go fucking

nuts, pardon my French. If we’re

insane, nobody has to listen to us.

I mean, who are you going to believe,

some crazy woman trying to destroy

the integrity of the force, or a

police officer? Then once they get

us in here, we either learn to

behave, and shut up, or –

(beat)

Or you don’t go home…or you go

home like that.

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Changeling.html

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

17. “The televised world is unlike reality” (Gamble & Gamble, 355).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:36:48 +0000

The cultivation theory by George Gerbner states that television perpetuates gender stereotypes and causes viewers to make inaccurate assumptions about real life (Gamble & Gamble, 355). Most of the actors on television are men playing dominant roles. It teaches males in our society that they can only be real men if they can exert control. The female actors on television have started being portrayed as “professional, competent, and independent.” Those women still embody the female stereotypes though; they are beautiful women who are still not as powerful as males (Gamble & Gamble, 357).

The 1990’s popular sitcom Home Improvement featured only 2 female actresses and more than 6 male actors. The males and females were all cast into stereotypical gender roles. The males were successful television hosts who worked on cars and loved power tools. One of the females was the wife and mother who nurtured, cared-for, and cleaned up after all the men in the house. She didn’t have a dynamic role and did not receive much air time until the last few years of the show when she started demanding it. The other female was Heidi, a “hot chick” that promoted Tim and Al’s television show, Tool Time.

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

16. “Advertising plays a major role in influencing our views of gender in society” (Gamble & Gamble, 352).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:29:31 +0000

Advertisements influence our views of gender by telling us how we should look and act. They are carefully designed to capture our attention and create a persuading message (Gamble & Gamble, 352). There are both male and female sex-role stereotypes that are portrayed in advertising. The advertising directed towards women places importance on looking young and sexy, being emotionally dependant, and placing men at the center of their lives (Gamble & Gamble, 352). The message that women wear sleepwear and lingerie more than everyday clothes stuck out to me because I can think of a handful of commercials, ads, and media that portray women as wearing just their underwear on a regular basis. That message is not only sent to women, but also men who then think females are supposed to wear sexy lingerie and underwear around them all the time.

Pick up a copy of any magazine directed at women and focus in on everything they advertise about being young, beautiful, and sexy. I was not shocked when I went onto Cosmopolitan magazine’s website and the first thing that I noticed was a pop-up advertising a skin renewal cream. When navigating that website and its published magazines, readers are surrounded by idealized images of beautiful models, tips on how to stay thin and look sexy, and articles about how to get a man to fall in love with you.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style/fashion/sexy-lingerie-for-your-shape

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

15. “The strengths of men and women predispose them to different kinds of work roles” (Gamble & Gamble, 264).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:20:03 +0000

The gendered stereotypes we learn from society are “the norms we use to guide our perceived career options and career paths” (Gamble & Gamble, 264). Men aim for the upper rungs of the corporate ladder where they can hold positions of authority and power. They are usually not torn between a career and family, so their drive to reach a high ranking career is not hindered. Women who work are the opposite and usually restrict their careers so they are better able to juggle both a job and raising a family. Females “tend to choose occupations that involve nurturing” and cooperation (Gamble & Gamble, 264).

The picture shown above is of a class of nursing students in Cleveland, OH. Though more males are entering the nursing field every year, it is still very much a primarily female career choice.

http://www.clscc.cc.tn.us/academics/divisions/health_wellness/nursing_department/index.asp

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

14. Regarding college athletics, “inequalities still exist in funding” (Gamble & Gamble, 250).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:12:24 +0000

In college athletics, male sports are given more money and more attention than female sports are. More fans attend male sports games, and universities subsequently draw in more money from their male athletes. Colette Dowling says that men are better athletes not because they are stronger, but because they have received better training and more practice (Gamble & Gamble, 250).

This article lists numerous financial inequalities between men’s and women’s college athletics; here are a few:

Female college athletes receive only 45% of college athletic scholarship dollars, which is $166 million fewer scholarship dollars than male college athletes.¹³

Female college athletes receive only 36% of sports operating dollars, which is $1.55 billion less than male college athletes.¹⁴

NCAA colleges spend 33% of recruitment money on women, which is $50 million less recruiting female athletes than male athletes.¹

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Womenssportsfoundation.org

13. In upper level education classrooms, males are allowed to “interrupt their professors [and] control the physical classroom space itself” (Gamble & Gamble, 238).

lckupke — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:05:37 +0000

College professors generally favor a teaching style that favors male competitiveness and assertiveness (Gamble & Gamble, 238). Males are allowed to interrupt the professor which gives them control over the dialogue and atmosphere in the class. This treatment towards male students actually begins in elementary school, when teachers tend to accept answers that were shouted out from boys over shouted answers from girls (Gamble & Gamble, 231). This teaches boys to be assertive and competitive and girls to be quiet and reserved.

The following clip is from an upper level classroom where a male interrupts the class therefore controlling the atmosphere and dialogue within the class. This kind of interruption may not happen every day in upper level classrooms, but I have personally noticed that males do disrupt my classes in less extreme ways.

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

12. In the terminating stage of romantic relationships, “the relationship’s costs now outweigh its rewards” (Gamble & Gamble, 173).

lckupke — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:00:55 +0000

The later five stages of a relationship involve coming apart and ending the relationship. The sixth stage is the differentiating stage and is when we start to consider ourselves not so much as a pair anymore and try to establish ourselves as individuals. The seventh stage is the circumscribing stage when individuals start the limit the amount and depth of their interaction. Next is the stagnating stage, when couples no longer experience growth. The two people may have no desire to talk to each other and any communication between them feels awkward. The ninth stage is the avoiding stage and is when the former partners do whatever it takes to avoid each other. The final and tenth stage is the terminating stage. Here, “the relationship’s costs now outweigh its rewards” (Gamble & Gamble, 173). I found it interesting that women are the ones who most often terminate a relationship, because I had always assumed the opposite.

The movie pictured above, The Break Up, shows a couple going through all five stages of coming apart. In the movie the characters were constantly around each other and fighting even after they had officially broken up. They were forced to be around each other because they had an apartment together and because it made for a more entertaining movie. I think in real life a couple whose relationship is not working out would try to avoid each other more to limit their potential communication and interaction.

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company