How do we see Men and Women in Our Society?

The media definitly affects our views of the people around us. This happens especially in the area of gender. Since we were really little there has always been these subliminal things taught to us that boys and girls are different-biologicaly- yes. But we are also taught that boys and girls do different things and there are certain ways that boys should act and certain ways that girls should act..otherwise your labeled as wierd or unsure of yourslef. As always I must include a personal experience to better reiterate my point.

I was at work just this weekend, and a lady and her child came through my lane and she had the cutest baby. The baby had a beautiful smile and the cutest deepest dimples..Anyway..I wanted to say either "she is so cute," or "he is so cute," but because the baby didnt have any "typically" gender specific colors or type of clothes on, and i didnt want to offend the woman by calling her male child a girl and her female child a boy, I simply said "your baby is so cute." As soon as they left I thought about the experience and even though I wasn't trying to distinguish people by what society has taught us, I did it anyway.

It seems as though we have ascribed certain atriutes to men and women that can never mesh or intertwine. We as a society expect women to be dainty and beautiful and like to share thier feelings--and ofcourse that is a generality of how we think subconciosly...We also as a society look at men as the strong bread winner who doesnt care about feelings and is always brave and never cries. This obviously isnt true because we each have different upbringings which influence how we think and how we live our lives.

In television, we are bombarded with so many ideas and commands as to how we should live our lives, what we should value and basically how we should live our lives. Some of these ideas seem reasonable, and others seem too outrageous to be able to live up to.
There is a show that I watch on the CW called "The Game." It stars Tia Mowry and other well known co-stars. I really enjoy watching the show, but like almost any television programs there is a lot of propoganda in this show. First of all the main character, Melany(Tia Mowry,) is an aspiring doctor, and her boyfriend is an NFL rookie trying to acheive stardom with his skills. All of thier friends are rich and well known. Automatically the show tells you that you should value success and acheivement because without a good job and money you can't get anywhere and wont be happy. Also the fact that you need material things to be happy. Melany's boyfriend Dirwin (the rookie NFL player,) becomes friends with Malik an experienced and more affluent NFL player. He constantly throws in Dirwin's face how Dirwin doesn't have a big house, nice car, and huge flat screen TV. The need for material things to be happy causes Dirwin to be in a situation where he feels that he should conform to what the other football players have and are doing. Youthfulness is another aspect of propoganda that is often seen on television. Almost every character on the show is young and the couple of people that are on the show who are only in their thrity's are given grief about "how old they are." This shows us that being young and preserving that youth and bueaty is really treasured in our society.

Media Saturation...

I watched the video on how children are marketed as consumers from the day they are born, and past the age of becoming consenting adults. Its seems really absurd but it never completely dawned on me how much we really are saturated in the media. From the time that we can recognize certain cartoon characters and thier corresponding gadgets we begin to harrass our parents to purchase them for us and because they essentially want the happiness of their children they give in. And they think'after all it's just one toy.' However, it's not just one toy, it accumulates and then becomes our consuming habit that we try to avert from as adults. They lead to the maxed out credit cards and overdue payments. I can remember when I was younger I saw these commercials on tv about the "techno dog." I thought the techno dog was the coolest thing. I kept hinting to my parents that I wanted the toy so badly. The more I saw the commercial the higher the desire was for the techno dog. The final straw was when my best friend got one and I decided that the "entire world"(one other person in the 4th grade) had one so I definitely had to get one. So ofcourse I got money for my birthday and purchased the dog. My parents and I bought into the propaganda and got sucked into the consumer hype. It's really sad how children at such young ages are targeted so much by the media and yet it doesnt even occur to us. We deem it normal to be part of the mass consuming culture. In the video some of the people interviewed made a comment about how little children are at the stage where "they form their values and adequites." I think it's really hard for a child to not be sucked into the consumer culture when at the age when they develop values and adequites, they are bombarded by media coming at them. On a lighter note with so many horrific things that children are exposed to, it's no wonder that toys companies and other media target children so much, it eases the bad in the world when children are sucked into media... Personally when something bad happens, to take my mind off that bad day, I do want to go shopping, or use the computer, or text, or listen to music, etc. But there is a point where one must draw the line...