Pink is for Girls, Blue is for Boys

Pink is for Girls, Blue is for Boys: The Cultural Change in Gender Throughout HistoryThis essay will address the issue of culture, the media and gender and how they affects us in today’s society. “The generally accepted rule is pink for boys, and blue for the girls,” noted an article published in the Ladies Home Journal in 1918. Society, the media and gender role socialization have changed since the early part of the twentieth century. Gender differences have influenced men and women’s behaviours, thoughts and feelings since the early 1900s.

A large part of this is because of how the media tells us we should act. Girls, for example, are traditionally seen as emotional nurturers and boys are seen as rough or tough providers and the breadwinner for the family. Since the moment of birth in the hospital, we are thrust into these gender roles – pink blankets for baby girls and blue blankets for baby boys. The constant changing ways of our society and the media is fascinating. The media provides us with an outline of how we should go about things in our daily lives. It also influences us on just about everything that we deal with on a day to day basis.

Our social interactions, for example, our beliefs, and our influences on others are all shaped to some degree by society and the social pressures we feel. Media and gender roles have appeared for a long time in our society and that people follow them because they are comfortable with them and it is what we know. It’s unfortunate because so much of society abides by certain rules that the small population of us that do not follow those rules, get judged and shunned by the rest of society because they are different – most of us view that if something is “different” it is wrong.

Gender roles, in turn, provide us with a sense of who we are, what we should do and how we should go about doing it. They also provide us with a false sense of reality. The more and more our society and culture changes, the more and more “traditional” views are pushed aside. For instance, not all women are effeminate and not all men conform to traditional concepts of masculinity. The stereotypical portrayals of gender roles on television and in the media, have gradually changed over the years, although not to the extent that society still sees as practical. Although women are beginning to be

represented in more occupations, men are rarely represented in ‘traditional’ female roles, such as the nurturing child care provider or attending to the housework; this is still seen as a women‘s job. However, with society changing more and more every day, we see more women in the workplace, more men taking on a role in the home, and women (and men) spending more time in school to get a higher education in order to provide for their families. All of these factors lead to changes in our gender roles and it goes to show how quickly our culture and society consistently change.

Although the media has improved greatly in the past few years. Signorielli, a professor at the University of Delaware, argues that “[t]elevision can still be seen, therefore, as representing a distorted view of society, which the perceptive minds of children may pick up with ease” (70). This quote proves the fact that from the beginning of childhood, children can pick up on social intimation and gender socialization. It starts in early childhood with children’s toys, the girls are encouraged to play with Barbie and the boys encouraged to play with trucks, and more masculine equipment.

Overall, what matters the most here is that men and women are still misrepresented as their traditional stereotypes in the majority of mass media. This stereotype becomes rooted in our minds, and is passed on from generation to generation as an ample view of male and female gender roles. Although women are slowly gaining respect and equality in today‘s society, it is not uncommon to see men and women illustrated as equals, working along side each other in an evenly challenging setting. This is especially true in the workforce.