Gender in school books

Last time we were assigned to check out a chapter in a text book and how it mediates images and/or sterotypical gender classifications. This was a interesting task since I hadn´t really looked at text books from this viewpoint. I was actually expecting even more stereotypes in the chapter, it is going to be interesting to see what people saw in the text when we discuss this in class today.

There were traditional stereotypical images e.g the pics depicting the man as a builder with a drill in the hand (quite muscular man with a serious expression on his face) and the woman holding a child with a big smile on the face. Very tradional. However this part was actually discussing these differences so it was a natural intro to the topic.

Another thing was the picture of the mormon family where the man was with his wives and kids (and there were several), but I think in general all things associated with religion are quite conservative and even oldfashioned so these pics were nothing new. Nevertheless I at least got the picture of women being inferior from these pictures relating to religion and marriage.

Lastly there was a part discussing the male and female differences where one could find a lot gender classifications. E.g women nurture, are interested in feelings and read psychology, whereas men are interested in objects and technology, solve problems and do not discuss feelings. These are so broad stereotypes that one can take them as sort of humour, there some truth in them, but things are not so clear cut. And as we discussed in the beginning of the course that many of these things are learned...

Katy Perry etc...

Last time we had class we were analyzing the music videos of Katy Perry and Jay-Z. Katy´s video was fairly self-explanatory and it was easy to reach the same conclusions as everyone else, it is obvious what sells in our world. It is quite sad that (I assume) many teenagers draw their influence from these products and end up wondering how they could look the same...

It was interesting to see how people saw the Jay-Z video in a different light, it feels that people see things they want to see i.e everyone had their own interpretations of the environment where it took place etc. This discussion will be continued today at class. One thing that reminded me of this video was a link at some news site - a link to entertainment section - it stated (in my words) that check out Rihanna´s bold new appearance. I didn´t follow the link but it had something to do with a photoshoot she had done and where she appeared at least with little garment, if any, on. What caught my attention was the word usage, the more brave she is the less clothes she has to have on, never mind that she actually has talent...