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...