Gender Stereotypes in Early Childhood

The Media, Marketing and Social Influences on Development of Gender Identity

Tim Churchill, Liz Hogan, Fugen Tulgar, Amanda Vilbrandt

Background:How Children Learn Gender

Movies and Television A meta-analysis of 30 surveys and experiments reveals that exposure to television

is a significant and positive predictor of sex role acceptance and attitudes among children and adults (Herrett-Skjellum & Allen, 1996, p. 174-176).

Toys and Marketing The American toy industry (excluding video) is a $22 billion market.

Corporate Power The Walt Disney Company earned $37.8 billion in revenue in 2008 (idea.sec.gov)

Parent-Child Interaction Even though there are very few physiological or behavioral differences between

males and females at birth, new parents tend to describe their infant sons as tall, large, athletic, serious, and having broad, wide hands, while infant girls are described as small and pretty, with fine, delicate features (Reid, 1994).

Children’s Movies and Agenda Setting

Mass media impose their agenda on the public, effectively telling audience members not necessarily what to think, but what to think about.Where The Girls Aren’t – Sins of Omission

Studied the 101 top-grossing G-rated films released from 1990 through 2004. The research analyzed a total of 4,249 characters in the movies, which included both animated and live-action films.

Findings There are three male characters for every one female character (75% male) Of all the characters with speaking parts, 28% were female and 72% were male Only 17% of storytellers are female

Children’s Moviesand Agenda Setting cont’

Sexism, Strength and Dominance: Masculinity in Disney FilmsYouTube Comments

“I watched a lot of Disney as a child and it never did me any harm. Get over it. Who wants ugly princesses?”

“I can understand that it seems bad for men and women to act this way or for Disney to be backing it up. But consider the time periods, consider the ways of the people. Most Disney princesses were in a time period that they were groomed for marriage and the birthing of heirs alone. Their looks were key to getting a "good" husband, no matter his own type be it handsome or disgusting.”

“A lot of you people are being ridiculous. They're not ‘brainwashed’, they just have common sense, something that is severly [sic] lacking in today's world. A woman being a homemaker, taking care of the kids and a man going out to work is NOT ‘social conditioning’. It's just gender specialization. The genders do what they were intended to do and what they're best at by nature. Gender roles should be embraced.”

Toys, Marketing and Spiral of Silence

First proposed by Elisabeth Noelle-NeumannPopularity of public opinion as measured by media exposureRests on two premises:

Individuals know which opinions are popular/prevalent Individuals will adjust personal expressions of opinion to agree with popular /

prevalent opinions

What is the risk of public disagreement with popular opinions? Potential isolation/exclusion from social group

Applies to messages about appropriate behavior by gendersCommercial media provides messages about appropriate opinions/behaviors including gender normsChildren risk exclusion if they deviate from norms

Child-centric Marketing• Children as Consumers

– Happened with the Baby Boom; children went from being Savers to Spenders– Became a consumer segment too lucrative to ignore

• Market Size– Teenagers spent roughly $100 billion last year– Children age 12 and under spent roughly $11 billion of their own money– Influenced roughly 75% ($165 billion) of their parents’ spending

• Image-based marketing developed for adult market (Calvin Klein perfume) applied to children’s consumer market

• Claims to offer (and subsequently defines):– “Fun”– Life-style enhancements– Peer group status– “Coolness”– Models for how to speak, behave, interact

Gender Ideology in Advertising• Sells item advertised and reinforces standard/stereotyped sex roles:• “Sugar and spice and everything nice…”

– Girls are sweet, well-behaved, sedentary, talkers among themselves (not to boys)– Girls stay neat and clean, take care of baby dolls– Girls are encouraged to think about being attractive to boys (Beauty Queen Barbie)

• “Snips and snails and puppy dog tails…”– Boys are wild, adventurous, imaginative and action-oriented– Boys are “doers” who get dirty– Girls are irrelevant/absent from the boy narrative

• Of the 188 ads, 103 (54%) were targeted to boys; 62 (33%) to girls, and 23 (12%) were gender neutral

–78 of the 188 had on-screen speaking parts for a girl or boy

–59 girls spoke in their girl-oriented ads

–19 boys spoke in their boy-oriented ads

• All 188 commercials contained voice-overs–100% of boy-oriented and gender neutral ads used male voice

–89% of girl-oriented ads used female voice

–11% of girl-oriented ads used male and female voices

Ad Analysis cont’ Speaking Parts

Verb Type Used in 188 Children’s Ads

Verb Describing: Boy-Oriented Ads Girl-Oriented Ads

Action 68 51

Competition/Destruction 113 9

Agency/Control 103 24

Limited Activity 151 269

Feelings/Nurturing 0 6

Corporations and Cultural Studies Theory

“…we are not born into a gender. Rather, we learn gender identity through interactions with others…” Allen (Gender Matters)

Culture Studies Theory:Media as a Powerful Tool

Theory Praxis• Analysis: mass media

– Serves the myth of democratic pluralism and ignores the power struggle that the media mask

• Action: articulate– Speaking out against oppression – Linking subjugation with the

communication media

• Ideology (definition)– “…Those images, concepts and

premises which provide the framework through which we represent, interpret, understand and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence.”

• Media Function:– Maintain the dominance of the

powerful and exploit the poor, innocent and powerless

Cultural Studies Theory:Making Meaning

Theory• Primary function of discourse:

make meaning. – Words and signs have no intrinsic

meaning.– Meanings are learned through

discourse• communication • culture

• Sources of discourse– People with power create “discursive

formations” that become naturalized.– Interpretations are perpetuated

through further discourse and keep the dominant in power.

Praxis• Corporations produce and

distribute the vast majority of information we receive

• Corporate control of information prevents many stories from being told.

– The ultimate issue for cultural studies is not what information is presented, but whose information it is.

• People can resist the dominant code.

Auto-ethnography:The Personal is Political

Theory• Individuals have strong political,

social and cultural ties with the dominant culture

– agenda setting– spiral of silence

• Individual stories repeat cycles and/or insert themselves into structural frameworks common to the lives of everyone.

• Narratives can bridge and connect over decades, centuries or even millennia and over disparate cultures.

Praxis• Auto-ethnography

– Recounts personal experience and not abstract theories

– Allows audience to grasp complex mechanisms in a non-threatening and informal manner.

• Auto ethnographic gender-related messages have the potential to break through gender stereotyping

– create powerful synergies; linkage of informational, intellectual and psychological messages

– allows an audience to understand how the personal experiences of marginalized and disenfranchised people, even those in distant places, are not so personal.

Parent-Child Interaction and Semiotics

Theory• The study of the social production

of meaning from sign systems

Praxis• Prior to orality and literacy,

children are immersed in signs• Clothing

– Signify the sex of infants– Encourage/discourage behavior– Sends implicit messages about how

the child should be treated • Responses to “Communication”

– Respond to cry/scream vs touch/talk– Boys: Assertive, Girls: Talkative

• Playful engagement– Physical/Interactive vs Close/Helping– Boys: Independent, Girls: Dependent

• “Anything that can stand for something else”

• Two components to signs– Signifier (Physical Manifestation)– Signified (Social Connotation)

• Function– Affirms the status quo by suggesting

that the world as it is today is natural, inevitable and eternal

How Will We Address This Issue With Communication?

1. Become media literate2. Encourage children to question media and other gendered artifacts

Ask questions and listenEstablish dialogue

3. Provide children with exposure to alternative mediaSupport and participate in alternative mediaExpose children to childhood related auto-ethnographies by exposing them to their gender-related childhood experiences