Gender Roles and Culture

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Gender Roles and Culture

• Liane Kolesar
• Ed Media

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Lets Talk About It!

• What is your favorite TV commercial or
  advertisement? Why did you choose this
  commercial?
• The media, commercials, and advertisement play
  an important role in American culture.
• What is culture?
• Culture is a social creation, meaning, that it
  teaches us to play roles so we can easily relate
  to each other. One type of role we play is gender
  roles, something we learn from birth.
• Gender roles are displayed in commercials and
  advertisements. Can anyone define gender roles?

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Introducing Dove

• What you are about to see are intriguing
  commercials that share information about
  self-esteem and girls in society. Our culture,
  through the use of multimedia, causes girls
  pressure to look a certain way. Because girls are
  constantly surrounded by beautiful women who
  are perfect, their self-esteem becomes lower as
  they try to change who they are. Dove is doing
  something wonderful. They offer a self-esteem
  program that makes girls feel beautiful the way
  they are.

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Critics Choice

• I chose these commercial clips because of the
  powerful message. I, myself, look at magazines,
  movies, advertisements, TV shows and the girls
  are beautiful, sexy, smart, have great bodies, a
  great sense of style-and it makes you second
  guess who you are. Our culture is now our
  problem. The media tries to affect your thoughts.
  The rising expectations both children and adults
  face, cause a constant struggle to translate
  confusing messages from the media and discard
  customary gender stereotypes.
• Body image is one reflection of how we perceive
  ourselves. Girls are three times more likely than
  boys to have a negative body image, according to
  the National Mental Health Information Center.

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Let it roll..

• Youtube link
• Dove Self esteem

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What Do You Think?
What are some of the pressures we face as
girls/women in society? How did our culture
become this way? Why do you think so? What are
strategies we can use to keep up our
self-esteem? Do you think that boys/men have the
same pressures? If so, what? What do males think
when they see these females? Do they compare them
to the rest of us? Do you think media has that
big of an impact on its viewer? Why or why
not? What else could Dove do to help
self-esteem?
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Discussion continued.

• Being male/female means....
• Example Being female means never being taken
  seriously when discussing sports.
• How do these generalizations from the ads compare
  with your own experiences? Do they reflect the
  gender roles in America?

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Self Esteem Project

• http//www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/dsef07/t5.aspx
  ?id7975
• http//body-image.suite101.com/article.cfm/body_im
  age_and_the_media
• TRUE COLORS
• THINGS WONT CHANGE UNTIL WE CHANGE THEM.

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Group Work

• We will break into small groups.
• Each group will receive an advertisement packet.
• Your job is to address the following questions in
  the group activity, writing the answers on a
  sheet of paper
• According to these ads, what are the
  characteristics of an attractive man and woman?
• How do these ads reflect "who is successful" in
  our culture.
• How do the ads measure success?
• What are the characteristics of ads with men in
  them?
• What are the characteristics of ads with women in
  them?
• In the ads with both men and women in them, how
  are the two portrayed together?
• What kind of colors are used in male/female ads?
  What do these colors symbolize? Is pink feminine?

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Works Cited

• http//www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/03/15/BK.girls.body
  .image/index.html
• http//body-image.suite101.com/article.cfm/body_im
  age_and_the_media
• http//www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/dsef07/t5.aspx
  ?id7975