I think it’s true that sometimes we would like to think that we live in a utopian society, where all people are treated equally and everything is always peaches and cream. However, that is far from the truth. The same perceptions of race, women, men, etc. are still reinforced into minds of our students today. During my undergraduate years, one of my classes asked us to explore how advertisements alone have formed our society’s view of women and the impact it then has on them. Time after time, ad after ad, women were shown phenotypically flawless. They had not a single blemish on their face. They were tall, thin, and had perfect hair. Usually, these commercials also depicted these perfect women, who had used whatever product they were advertising, being attractive to men. There is no doubt that seeing this kind of image repeatedly has some kind of effect on a woman’s psyche. Not only does it affect women, but it also has the potential to affect the expectations that men have for women. Girls need to know at a young age that they have the ability to be strong, smart, and independent women.
Race is another issue that often seems to be stereotypically defined. Although the underlying message is not funny, I could help but chuckle at the description of the Indians from Looney Tunes. It’s absurd that we would even think to state that they are incapable of a civil and productive life. Also, it is so true that the hero or heroine is usually a white. Why is that? What does that say about our “modern” society today?
Children are exposed to this material everyday on the TV so why would we as teachers want to keep feeding these stereotypes to our students through their literature? We must be conscious of what we have our children explore. As our students get older and become more conscious about their appearance (e.g. 6th grade or so), we could address some of these myths into the literature that is assigned to them.
Hi Courtney. Before I had children I had "Where the Girl's are" and as a cloding quote the author wrote something to the effect that if only we could all have the some body image as we did when we were 4 and had no idea of how flawed we were, before we became self conscious. I grew up in an era where Faraha Faucett was the person to emulate. Many from my generation are still trying to recover. I believe that you are right, we can (and are obligated to) help our students address these stereotypes head on. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteCourtney I think the feeding of media in our society is not up to the teacher to decided if it is appropriate or not. The family need to start that ball rolling, which yep you are right the parents will most likely not do this. But, we can introduce the other side or the real fairy tales that Disney altered to make happy. We can discuss why media has done this and where else has it happened. But, a teacher might change a child's only hope for having something which I would not want to be responsible for dissolving their imagination. Take Santa Clause for example, he is typically or for some people not real. But for children he is real and should remain real. It is not the teacher's role to point that out that mommy buys all your gifts etc! I would hope a teacher would wait to do this discussion in like fifth or six grade any earlier would possible change personal beliefs about Disney characters. I had to go to Disney World when I was in the eight grade and my friends were going to the beach. This upset me because I thought I was too old, but I knew better not to ruin the fun and fantasy for my two younger sisters. Watching my sisters faces light up when we found Whinny the Pooh and some of the Princesses I realized it is a stage that is okay for children to go through, but we should monitor exposure and have discussion about the stories.
ReplyDelete