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Shayla Meehan

10/17/16
AP Lang
B Block
Societys Influence on Understanding Gender
Are you FTB (For the Boys) or are you FTG (For The Girls)? These two acronyms
created by society have become common in the vocabulary of high school students across the
country since it first was used in 2013 by a male hockey player. The two acronyms not only
state that you will proudly be spending your Saturday night exclusively to hang out with the
mens lacrosse team, making you For The Boys, but is an example that supports how society
victimizes the behavior of men and women. Division within a society is boundless. Society has
created unspoken rules and expectations of men and women just by living in the culture we
have today. However, peoples gender ideals are unintentional, they have are a basis for
gendered behavior. In modern culture, the number of issues revolving gender expectations is
increasing throughout society. The root of all of these emotional cases is the long existing
practice of hyper masculinity and hyper feminism being brought up by society itself. Society
influences our understanding of gender and gendered behavior through the portrayal of gender
roles in the media, market, and adult or influential figures.
The Netflix original production, Miss Representation, is a informational documentary that
exposes how the media has repeatedly portrayed that women should live and behave in a
society. Netflixs choice to name the documentary, Miss Representation, captivates the
attention of the viewer because of its use of paronomasia, the rhetorical device in writing that
utilizes a play on words. The title reads, Miss Representation, referring to how women are
announced in beauty pageants. Beauty pageants are a stereotypical activity that women involve
themselves in to compete with other women to be the most desirable. Beauty pageants diminish
a woman's intelligence because they reward a woman on being beautiful not successful. Now, if

you read the title of this documentary out loud you will hear the word, misrepresentation.
Misrepresentation is something displayed in an incorrect manner. In regard to the application of
this definition to women in society, only valuing women for their beauty, and not their brains, is
an example of misrepresentation. The ultimate message Netflix is inferring is that women should
be working to accomplish success, just as men do, instead of listening to what the media
conveys.
In the aspect of marketing, businesses and marketers are constantly seeking the most
effective way to publicize their product. As a result, the public is exposed to gender based
products, which creates a label to a certain product and further divides the inequality of men and
women. During a classroom experiment, students were asked to visit to local stores and gather
a collection of gender influences on society. The results were eye-opening. Rite Aid is a popular
pharmacy that sells many basic necessities for both genders. In Rite Aid you will find many
products that serve a purpose for both men and women, however, the label on the packaging of
products can sometimes favor a particular gender. For example, room spray was marketed
toward women using labels with the catchphrase, Breezy girl, Dreamy girl, Sassy girl, and
so on. The product within the bottles are useful to both genders, however the repeated use of
the word girl flashed across the outside of the product targets customers of the female
population. In more instances than you would assume, products on the market target genders
through the use of design, colors, and names. The influence of living in a society with gender
specific products, has created a norm for men and women to buy products tailored to their
genders when making purchasing on the market.
In a society where there is so much to learn, our youth is heavily influenced by adult
figures and role models. Naturally, the younger generation is taught by those who come before.
When something has been practiced for so long it is hard to change a routine pattern. The
adults that guide youth through parenting children, have a great deal of impact on a childs
perception of genders. In the article, Go Carolina, a middle school boy singled his own self out

for having a lisp. This judgement was purely based on what the boy had gathered from others .
He did not need to be told directly that having a lisp suggested that you were homosexual,
instead he developed this idea that having a lisp was a homosexual because it is a stereotype
created by society. The theory that if one person creates a conceptual idea then other will follow,
also referred to as a domino effect, could be an explanation as to how stereotypes originate.
They also can be the way in which society turns around these criticizing ideas toward genders.
If parents were to eliminate the use of gender principles, we could gradually come to a society
with more gender equality.
Due to the notion that gender inequality is predominant within the media, market, and
role models of society, gender norms have influenced societys understanding of gender and
gendered behavior. This influence is negative because it has built ideals and expectations of
each gender that can become detrimental to the health and emotional well being of men and
women. If society works to change the dynamic of how media, market, and the role models in
which gender behaviors are distinguished, we will become a more equal society and appreciate
the value of men and women for what is within and not for what seen perceived the outside in all
aspects of living. These aspects could be as far fetched as to who will be elected to become the
next president or as inconsequential as who gets a higher grade on the text calculus exam.
Whatever these situations are, gender should never favor person because of the physicality of
their body.

Sedaris, David. Go Carolina. N.p.: n.p., 200. PDF.


Miss Representation. Dir. Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Perf. Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow. N.p., 20
Jan. 2011. Web. 9 Oct. 2016.

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