Women in Academe

In recent years, women have begun to make inroads into the ranks of teaching staff in Canadian universities. Between 2002-2003, the number of full-time female faculty had risen to 30 percent, which was a substantial increase from only 20 percent one decade earlier (Statistics Canada, 2006). The growing presence of female faculty has been largely attributed to the rising educational attainment of women in undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs. However, although female enrollment has never been greater, their increasing presence in all degree programs has not kept pace with the proportion of males occupying full-professorships in Canadian universities. Currently females occupy only 22 percent of full-time professors, 34 percent of associate professors, and 41.3 percent of assistant professors. Furthermore, their pay pales in comparison to that of men while occupying the same position, averaging a discrepancy of approximately $3,500 (Armenti, 2004). At first glance, female presence within academic circles appears to be rapidly growing. Nonetheless, when analyzing current statistics of women’s positions within Canadian universities, it becomes increasingly apparent that their progression is limited to the lower ranks. As a result, a burning question is “Where are all the women?”

Struggling for Full Citizenship: Why Women lack Full Equality

Alfred Marshall (Heater, 1999) argues that citizens are composed of three bundles of rights: the civil, the political, and the social. For the this article, the focus will be on the bundle of civil rights, in particular, the right to work and how this is an essential criterion to possess full citizenship. The critical aspect of assessing one’s freedom is distinguished between the extent of achievement and the freedom to achieve. Achievement is concerned with what we manage to accomplish, and freedom with the real opportunity that we have to accomplish what we value (Sen, 1992). In regards to the extent of achievement, female academics have managed to achieve their position as professors within universities as the result of their educational background. However, they do not possess the freedom to achieve because their prospects for advancement are severely limited. This is because female professors do not have ample time to invest into their careers because they are required to perform a disproportionate amount of childcare and housework.

At present, Canada has two forms of leave, which include maternity leaves and are often referred to pregnancy leaves, as well as parental leave. A pregnancy leave is a right that pregnant female employees have that entitles them to take up to 17 weeks of unpaid and job-protected time off work. This length of time is typically the same for all provinces with the exception of Quebec and Saskatchewan, which provide 18 weeks, and Alberta, which provides 15 weeks (Deven & Moss, 2006). Following the 17 weeks of pregnancy leave is 35 weeks of parental leave. This leave can be 37 weeks if the mother does not take a pregnancy leave and can be taken by either parent or shared, but cannot extend beyond 52 weeks. However, this “gender-neutral” policy was created in 2000 and the length of parental leave was dramatically increased from the 10 weeks parents were provided prior to the amendment. The money that is paid during a pregnancy or parental leave is paid through Employment Insurance (EI), which is under federal jurisdiction. It is a rate of 55 percent of your average insured earnings up to a yearly maximum amount of $40,000. That is, you can receive a maximum payment of $423 per week. The pay provided for pregnancy leave will not exceed 15 weeks and for parental leave it is 35 weeks (Deven & Moss, 2006). For university faculty, the pay provided to them by the federal government is “topped up” by the institution so they earn approximately 100 percent of their pay for the first two weeks of leave and 85-100 percent of their pay during the next 17 weeks of leave (Caut, 2006). However, as discussed earlier, the amendment of this policy did not relieve women of their roles as primary parents since only 9% of men in Canada took a parental leave between 2001-2006 (Deven & Moss, 2006). Since there is a divergence between what women manage to achieve and the freedom to achieve, women do not posses full citizenship. Their rights are confined within a policy that privileges men’s positions in society and provides them with the freedom to achieve.

Traditional Structure of Academia

Academia requires a large amount of time, preparation, and involvement both inside and outside of the university setting. Since these responsibilities are extremely crucial in the consideration for tenure and promotion, they cannot be compromised with the expectations and demands of childcare and housework. In an attempt to combine family life and work without jeopardizing their prospects of attaining tenure, women faculty has typically taken one of two approaches referred to as “May babies” and post-tenure babies. “May baby” phenomenon refers to timing the birth of one’s child for the month of May, or nearing the early summer months, so that women would be permitted to have children without being forced to take time off from work which would be perceived as a lack of commitment towards their careers (Armenti, 2004). A second strategy that many female academics use for attempting to avoid the conflict between childrearing and attaining tenure is referred to as “post tenure babies.” This is where young female academics postpone having children until after they have obtained tenured positions (Armenti, 2004).

Although female representation in undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs is ever growing, the traditional structure of universities inhibits women from attaining equal status, recognition and pay to that of their male counterparts. This reflects what Aisenberg and Harrington (1988) call the “old norms”, a set of historical beliefs and expectations that remain even as new understandings arise. Old norms reiterate the message that female professors must choose between childrearing and work as opposed to combining the two. The upholding of such traditional norms is contradictory because academia is an environment which fosters liberal ideologies and where individuals are encouraged to challenge the status quo without any consequence to their positions (Rhode, 2006). With that, it is unrealistic to assume that the expectations placed on professors can be altered or lessened to alleviate the burden many female academics experience when attempting to balance family life and work. Instead the problem lies with the construction of parenthood, in that women’s primary role has, and continues to be attributed to childrearing which remains unchallenged among many academics.

References

Aisenberg, N., & Harrington, M. (1988). Women of Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press

Armenti, Carmen. (2004). “Women Faculty Seeking Tenure and Parenthood.” Cambridge Journal of Education. Vol. 34: 65-83.

CAUT (Canadian Association of Teachers). “Policy Statement on Parental Leaves.” Retrieved from: http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=248&lang=1

Deven, Fred & Moss, Peter. 2006. “Leave Policies and Research: A Cross-National Overview.” Haworth Press, Inc.

Rhode, Deborah. (2006). In Pursuit of Knowledge. US: Stanford University Press.

Stats Canada. (2006). “University Enrollment.” The Daily-Tuesday October 11th, 2005. Retrieved September 29, 2007 from http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051011/d051011b.htm

Heater, Derek. (1999). What Happened to Citizenship? Polity Press: Cambridge, UK.

Sen, Amartya. (1992). Inequality Reexamined. Oxford University Press: Cambridge, Mass.

Why?

Well, because gender based exclusion, one sex only activity, is quite literally the root of all female (and male) oppression in this world.  We’ll stop short of saying it is the root of all evil because as we all know, the root of all evil is love of money. But it is definitely the root of all gender based oppression.

Now we know that’s a pretty bold statement, but bare with us for a moment. We all know that women are not treated equally in this world right? That’s the reality! Women perform 60% of work world wide, they earn 10% of income, and own 10% of the land (Eitzen and Baca-Zinn, 2003:243).  Women are segregated into pink collar occupations, enjoy less financial stability, lower rates of pay, and are generally expected to sacrifice their career paths to raise the family while their men get ahead. Women are generally left at home to raise the children (an incredibly difficult and demanding job) with minimal help from their spouses and ironically, this is true even in relationships where the male and female are overtly egalitarian. You can go into a marriage with very high ideals but when the babies come, traditional scripts tend to come into play and it is the women who are the ones who bear the primary responsibility. Of course, take five or six or ten years off your career path to raise children and what do you get? Less raises and fewer promotions! It is a sacrifice that we have to make when we raise children, but it’s almost always the woman who makes that sacrifice.  Ironically, this sacrifice can come back and slap ya in the face when the kids grow up, the marriage breaks up, and the female who made the career sacrifice is left with nothing but the pink collar ghetto. As a result of the “sacrifices” they make, women experience higher rates of depression, poverty, and social stigma. And not only that, women and girls are victims of spousal abuse and sexual violence far more often than men. Globally, around the world, women are oppressed and there is no denying that. If you were born female, you are born with a social and economic handicap that is going to make your life a lot harder than it needs to be if genders were treated equally.

And why is this?

Well, there are a lot of reasons why it happens but if you ask us it all comes down to the fact that we (and by “we” we mean the people of this earth) have convinced ourselves that boys and girls are significantly different on an emotional, intellectual, even spiritual bases. Boys are like this, girls are like that. Boys play with trains, girls play with dolls. Boys are the breadwinners, girls are the nurturers. Boys are stronger, girls are weaker.  If you think about it long enough you’ll probably come up with a hundred oppositional differences between boys and girls.

And how is this related to gender oppression?

Well think about it for a moment. When you believe that there are significant differences between boys and girls, men and women, you have a ready made JUSTIFICATION for just about any gender based inequality, exclusion, or oppression that you might want to think of.

Why do women (why should they) stay home and look after the babies?

Because girls are different!

They are the ones who nurture.

Why can’t girls be doctors?

Because boys are different!

They are smarter and more capable.

Why don’t men participate more in cooking?

Because men are different.

They like mechanical things while girls like to bake.

Why don’t women get paid as much as men?

Because they are different.

They aren’t as motivated or committed as men are.

Why don’t women get promoted as fast?

Because they are different.

Why can’t women be priests in the catholic church?

Because they are different.

You get the picture?

In order to justify and support gender inequality and oppression all you have to do is invoke gender difference. It is that way because boys are girls are different.

Of course at this point some of you will be thinking, well the genders are different. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Girls are emotional, irrational, weak. Boys are tough, strong, achievers. Girls like dolls, boys like cars (though tell that to Danica Patrick). Girls are like this, boys are like that. Honestly though, all that’s a load of pseudo-scientific horseshit. There’s really no “scientific” basis to suggest that boys are all that much different than girls. For one, the scientific academy has a huge gender bias that makes any scientific defense of gender differences useless and indefensible. And you can’t argue this. When I did my psychology undergraduate degree twenty years ago, we knew there was a bad gender bias in psychology and psychologists knew they had to do something about it. Sad thing is, they didn’t! In fact after twenty or thirty years of awareness, the gender bias is still there. As much as they may not like to hear it, psychologist are still referencing reality on the basis of their gender perceptions and worse still, they are justifying their bias. In the article linked above the psychologist actually defends scientific methodology suggesting that when it comes to identifying gender bias, science works. But clearly it does not. If scientific methodology has been unable to make much progress against gender bias in research over the last thirty years, if gender bias still exists, how can anybody make a claim that science works or can provide us with valid knowledge about gender.  The conclusions are methodologically straight forward. If there is a systematic bias in the research on gender, the research on gender is not valid. And if after thirty years the bias is still there, then it may certainly be fair to suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we approach gender in science. Certainly it is more reasonable to suggest that than to say, despite the presence of bias, “it’s working.”

Gender similarity, not difference

A second reason that you can’t really believe science when it comes to gender is the bell curve, or rather our misuse of the bell curve. As you all know, the bell curve is a graphed distribution of “characteristics.” You can put anything you want on a bell curve from height and weight to IQ to hair color. When you do that, or rather when you put the sampling means on a graph, you often get what a statistician calls a “normal” distribution. This normal distribution shows the purported distribution of characteristics in a population.

Now, there’s a lot of problems when it comes to using the normal distribution to describe human characteristics but putting those aside for now, what we notice when we graph male and female characteristics on a bell curve is not difference but similarity. You can look at the example graph in this article showing the height and weight of humans differentiated by gender and ask yourself, what do you see.  Do you see the little bit of difference in the tails of the distribution, bend to the statistical indoctrination, and tell yourself the difference is highly significant, or do you look at the amazing overlap? In my view, when you consider the height and weight of male and female what is most striking are the similarities. That is, we are more alike than we are different. Yet if you were a psychologist, or a pop culture pundit, or a chauvinistic male, you might highlight the difference (perhaps because talking about difference makes it look like you’ve actually discovered something) without ever commenting on the similarity. It is a bit odd when you think about it. While it is true there may be difference in the extremes in abilities, sometimes, really what is so remarkable about the genders is their similarities. The truth is, male or female, we all have two arms, two legs, two eyes, an identical looking brain, an intellect, emotions, feelings, and all the things that make us human. We would argue that it is not our differences that are important (though admittedly they can be a lot of fun), it is our similarities and these similarities far outweigh any superficial sexual characteristics that might differentiate us.

Of course, the pseudo-scientific clap trap about gender differences, or the fact that we all chose to focus on difference rather than similarity, isn’t the main point here. The main point is that once you do that, once you allow for the idea that men and women are significantly different (even though it’s their similarities that are arguably more remarkable) then you have created the necessary ideological support (i.e. the rationalization and justification) for gender oppression on this planet. You buy into that dichotomy, you become the oppressor (even if you are the sex being oppressed).  It really is as simple as that.

And what does this have to do with gendered activity? Well, gendered activity is the prototypical gender oppression. It is the prototypical exclusion upon which all other exclusions are based.  Of course, I understand you might have a hard time swallowing this. I mean, what does a girl’s only baby shower, or a boy’s only hockey club, have to do with the suppression of women on this planet? Well, everything because once you polarize the genders, once you create a distinction, once you allow exclusion and sorting based on difference, then it becomes possible to rank, and sort, and organize and deny and exclude along any other indices you can care to think about. If you say, only girls can play or only boys can play then by default you give legitimacy to the mythology of gender difference.  And if you give legitimacy to the myth of gender difference, then you have provided support for the reality of gender oppression.  Of course, you may not like to hear this. You may be sitting comfortably in a life organized around gender based activities, but that doesn’t change the fact that if that is your life, then you are supporting the gender based oppression of women on this planet, even if you don’t want to. It is exactly like the feminists say, the personal is political.

So what are you going to do about it? Well, if you are a male and you have a wife, or a sister, or a mother, or a daughter, and you are interested in seeing them treated equally in this world, then you have to stop thinking about gender differences, stop supporting gendered activities, and start working towards gender inclusion. If you do anything else you are a part of the problem, and a component of the oppression. If you need help, take a page out of this grade school lesson book on peer exclusion and just say no (http://www.tolerance.org/activity/peer-exclusion)

Problem: Sometimes a group of children won’t let another kid play with them just because of their gender. Gender is whether you are a boy or a girl. Sometimes boys will say that a girl can’t play with them. Sometimes girls will say that boys can’t play with them.

Rationale: This isn’t nice. It is wrong to exclude someone just because they are a boy or a girl, or because of their gender. Not letting someone play with you just because of their gender is called bullying, and bullying is not allowed…

If you are a female and you don’t like the social, political, economic and (even) spiritual inequality that becomes possible when we allow gender difference and gender exclusion, if you don’t like the idea of maybe one day finding yourself on the wrong end of a glass ceiling, submerged in a pink collar ghetto, or crying as your husband of twenty years, whom you sacrificed your entire life and career for, leaves you to go hang with a younger female because “that’s what men do,” then take a page out of the same grade school lesson book on peer exclusion and just say no. You can’t say “you can’t play just because you’re a boy.”

And just to be clear, just because you are female doesn’t give you free pass. You don’t get to engage gender inclusions and then complain about the sorry state of this world, or your life, or your daughter’s awful marriage to that “typical male,” down the road. The personal is political and change starts with you.

Oh an incidentally, everything we’ve said here about gender difference and exclusion applies equally well to ageism, racism, or any of the other exclusions, based on difference, that make the inequality of this world go around. As long as we keep thinking of ourselves as different and not as a unified human race, as long as we hang onto our “we and they” mentality (however we choose to spin that), we create the wedge that allows the inequality that causes the suffering that ruins the lives of the vast majority of people on this earth.

References

Eitzen, D. Stanley and Maxine Baca-Zinn. 2003 Social Problems. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Additional Reading

http://www.delmar.edu/socsci/rlong/problems/chap-09.htm

http://www.tolerance.org/activity/peer-exclusion

http://personalispolitical.tripod.com/

Gender Socialization

When children view advertisements, what are the images that they are exposed to?  The majority of the time children see stereotypical representations.  Girls are presented in traditional roles such as playing house and cooking.  Girls are also shown playing with dolls and being concerned with being popular and beautiful.  Girls are also portrayed as being  cooperative and more passive and less aggressive and competitive than boys.   Boys on the other hand are shown seeking power, speed and physical action.   Aggressive behavior is almost exclusively limited to advertisements targeting boys.  Boys are also shown as being more independent than girls.

One needs to look no further than the advertisements during Saturday morning cartoons to find evidence of these stereotypes.  Commercial after commercial shows girls playing with dolls or makeup and boys playing sports, racing cars or battling action figures.  Among the more popular toys for girls are Barbie dolls, Bratz dolls, stuffed pets to care for and make up.  The girls in these advertisements are seldom pictured away from their homes, instead they are contently playing inside in their bedrooms or in their on backyards.  The boys in the advertisements are allowed more freedom to roam the world.  They are more mobile and active.  The popular toys for boys involve more action.  They actively battle each other through play with sports, transformers or Star Wars action figures.  It is important to note that a clear distinction between a doll and an action figure has been created.  Although an action figure would seem to resemble a doll, it has carefully been defined as a toy suitable for a boy to play with.  Because of gender stereotypes, it is unacceptable for boys to play with dolls, but perfectly fine for them to play with action figures.  The emphasis being on action rather than the caring and nurturing associated with dolls.

An episode of the popular television show Friends illustrates the gender stereotype surrounding dolls.  One of the male characters, Ross, had recently become a father.  He was divorced from his wife, who had taken a lesbian lover.  During one of the episodes, Ross’ ex-wife dropped the baby off for him to spend some time with. Much to his dismay his son was hugging a Barbie doll.  The rest of the episode centered around his efforts to interest his son in GI Joe instead of the Barbie doll which is stereotypically associated with girls.  The GI Joe doll is stereotypically associated with boys, because he is an “action figure”.  When confronted by another character that GI Joe is a doll, Ross quickly counters that he isn’t a doll he is an action figure.  Thus, somehow making him more appropriate for boys.  This example illustrates the stereotypes surrounding dolls.  Girls play with dolls and boys play with action figures.  By calling the doll an action figure it makes is an appropriate boy toy, because of the emphasis on action.  This example also illustrates the influence of parents in reinforcing gender stereotypes.  Apparently Ross’ son was young enough not to be aware of gender differences and was willing to play with anything.  Ross, however, was uncomfortable with his son playing with a Barbie and reverted to gender stereotypes by encouraging the boy to play with an action figure instead.  Another thing that this example shows is that television programs as well as advertising can be influential in perpetuating traditional gender stereotypes.

A study by Browne (1998) provides further evidence of the substantial gender stereotyping that is found in advertisements.  According to Browne,

Boys appeared in greater numbers, assumed more dominant roles, and were more active and aggressive than girls. (p. 12)  In commercials containing both boys and girls, boys were significantly more likely to demonstrate and/or explain the product even when the product used was not sex-typed.  Girls were never shown using products designed for boys (e.g., guns or trucks), and no commercials showed boys using products targeted for girls (p. 6-7).  Gender role reinforcement was observed at the level of body language and facial expression; girls were portrayed as shyer, giggly, unlikely to assert control, and less instrumental (p.12).

A print advertisement for a play castle exemplifies the type of gender stereotyping researchers have found in advertisements.  In the two page advertisement a boy and girl are playing with the pop up castle.  The boy is shown standing inside the castle looking out while the girl is depicted as cowering outside the gate of the castle as if in fear of something unseen.  The boy seems to possess the power as he looks down on the girl.  This advertisement further perpetuates gender stereotypes by containing a picture of a pink castle in the right hand corner of the advertisement.  Apparently, the gray castle is intended for boys and a pink one is available for girls.  The use of color to indicate the appropriateness of a toy for a girl or boy is found in many advertisements.  Another example of this is Leap Pad, a popular learning toy.  The original Leap Pad was blue and green.  However, last Christmas a pink Leap Pad appeared in ads and on the shelves of stores.  Because of gender stereotypes, the pink Leap Pad rather than the blue one was intended for use by girls.

At this point some of you may be saying so what.  What’s the big deal if a toy is blue or pink or if it’s a doll or an action figure?  Isn’t it just advertising trying to sell a product?  The problem is that within these messages of consumption are lessons about gender roles and expectations.   These advertisements specifically target children with a message of what is and isn’t appropriate for boys and girls.  Although these may be “just advertisements” they are also one of the places that children learn about gender roles.

According to Bandura’s social learning theory, children formulate gender role concepts through observations as well as through rewards and punishment (Bandura, 1969).   As the definition of social learning has expanded , the focus has included both imitation of others and expectancies of reinforcement for that imitative behavior (Rotter, 1982). The media have become a focus of study related to social learning, because the most readily available sources of models for children to emulate aside from their parents are movies, books and especially television (Mayes & Valentine, 1979).  Considering the number of hours of television that children watch, their exposure to televised models through programs and advertisements may even be greater than their exposure to their own parents’ behaviors (Bandura, 1969).

It could be argued that children learn all sorts of behaviors from television that either sex could perform.  However, research has indicated that children tend to imitate same-sex models with greater frequency than opposite-sex models (Courtney & Whipple, 1983).   According to Smith (1994), “one argument for this occurrence is that peers and parents are more likely to reward children when they imitate same-sex models.  Children also generally recall more about same-sex models than opposite sex models.  This sex bias is especially true of boys and also especially pronounced when male models behave in sex-stereotyped ways (p.324).

The concern that behaviors observed and internalized from television advertisements may have considerable influence in shaping gender role concepts of young children is reflected in the number of studies in this area (Kolbe & Muehling, 1995; Smith, 1994).  Expectations of sex roles and self-labeling processes have the potential to influence many aspects of a child’s life from social interaction to occupational plans, and even to cognitive functioning (Macklin & Kolbe, 1984).  Basically, children’s social learning from television advertisements result in the advertisements showing children how they should behave.  As has been discussed, the behavior taught by these advertisements to children is stereotypical gender roles and behavior.  This is important because many gender role development theorists believe that despite intervention from influential adults like parents and teachers, children often remain very specific in their judgments about the gender appropriateness of behaviors, occupations and play objects (Katz, 1979; Bettelheim, 1987).  For example, several studies have demonstrated that heavy viewers of television hold more traditional gender-stereotyped notions of proper role behavior than light viewers of television (Signorelli, 1989; Signorelli & Lears, 1991).

In terms of the social learning theory, girls continue to see models of domesticity.  Limitations for girls’ behavior as well as boys’ behavior exist in television commercials.  It is often easy to point out the limitations for girls’ behavior, and this has received a lot of research attention.  However, it must be remembered that boys are also limited in their behavior by gender role stereotypes.  For example, advertisements often show boys as aggressive, physically active, and needing to win rather than nurturing or sharing.

In fact Larson (2001) has found an increase in the occurrence of violence and aggression in the commercials.  According to Larson, more then 34% of the commercials featuring children and targeting young children included aggression (p.9).  He compares his findings to the 12.5% found by Macklin and Kolbe in 1984 and argues that there has been a nearly three-fold increase in less than 15 years (p. 9).

Klinger, Hamilton and Cantrell (2001) have recently studied the relationship between children and violence and/or aggression in toy commercials.  The commercials in their study were rated as demonstrating stereotypic sex-role behavior.  Male-focused commercials and imagined toy play with the boy-toys were rated as more aggressive than were female-focused and neutral commercials, and their respective toys.  Based on their research Klinger, Hamilton and Cantrell suggest that boys are particular targets of aggressive content in marketing and more desensitized to aggressive content than are girls.  According to Deborah Tannen (1990), aggressive behavior is stereotypically associated with males.  Therefore, by depicting aggressive boys but not girls these advertisements are reinforcing gender stereotypes.  Klinger, Hamilton and Cantrell cautioned that since children’s programming is saturated with toy commercials, young viewers are at best reinforced by stereotypic sex-role behavior, and at worst, inundated with violent content.

Children do not acknowledge a difference in gender roles and gender appropriateness of toys until they understand the concept of gender constancy.  Gender constancy means that the child is aware that he or she will always be male or female regardless of superficial changes such as haircuts or clothing (Smith, p.325).  The development of this awareness is generally achieved by age seven (Browne, 1998).   Once children have reached the cognitive stage of gender constancy, they become more attentive to same sex models and they are more willing to model the character’s behaviors.  Prior of gender constancy, children do not differentiate the sexes and are more willing to model behavior regardless of the models sex.

Past studies suggest that children as young as four years of age are likely to choose gender-typed toys when they have seen them modeled on television by same-sex children (Ruble, Balaban, and Cooper, 1981).  Hence, most children tend to accept sex stereotypes, identify with the stereotypical role of their gender, and punish other children, especially boys, who exhibit cross-gender behaviors and traits.  This punishment of other children can be especially harsh.  If a boy prefers “girl toys” or exhibits girl behaviors or traits such as being kind and caring, he can expect to be teased and called a sissy or gay.  Girls who prefer to play sports, be active and play with “boy toys” are often times labeled as tom boys or as being butch.  Being labeled as a tom boy may or may not lead to punishment by other children.  When I joined my daughter for lunch at school one day, I noticed that she sat with the boys while most of the girls in the class sat at another table.  The boys told me that my daughter was a tom boy because she liked boy things.  They accepted her as “one of the boys.”   As I have experienced with my daughter, six and seven-year old children are able to identify gender behaviors and traits and quickly label those children who exhibit cross-gender behaviors and traits. As a young child, my daughter didn’t differentiate the sexes, was willing to model behavior regardless of the models sex and developed a preference for “boy toys” and more active play.  As she has begun to understand the concept of gender constancy, she is able to identify gender roles and acknowledge her “deviance” from what is considered gender appropriate by accepting the label of tom boy.

However, research by Kolbe and Muehling (1995) indicates that the evaluation of gender appropriateness can be altered through non-stereotypical advertisements.  They found that, boys who viewed ads with a female actor were more likely to indicate that the toy was appropriate for both genders than boys who saw male actor only ads.  The boys who saw the male actor ads said that the advertised toy would be preferred by boys only.  Girls who say the female actor ads also indicated that the toy was less appropriate for boys only.

This finding is significant because it indicates that males may not respond negatively to female models in advertisements.  Nontraditional presentations appear to have the capability of altering the gender-appropriateness classifications of an advertised product.  Kolbe and Muehling argue that this finding is important from a social influence perspective, because boys who saw counter-stereotyped ads were more likely to indicate that the toy was for both genders than were stereotyped ad treatment males.  Overall, their study suggests that some changes in gender appropriateness are possible, but are limited by the already strongly held beliefs by children about gender and the lack of counter stereotypical advertisements presented on television.

Based on the research, it would seem that gender role portrayals in advertisements continue to be stereotypical.   Although there are more representations of girls in advertisements creating more equity in comparison to boys, these portrayals continue to be largely stereotypical for both the girls and boys.  This is disturbing because, these advertisements have the potential to reinforce for children conventional sex-role definitions, meaning that children may come to believe life is supposed to be like it is portrayed in commercials (Ivy & Backlund, 1994,p.116).  Advertising may also influence how children develop an identity for themselves, relative to their own sex and gender, and how they come to expect certain behavior from men and women (Macklin & Kolbe, 1984).  Another disturbing finding is that change in gender portrayals to less stereotypical ones has been slow to occur in advertisements, yet portrayals of violence and aggression have increased.

It should be kept in mind, that although it has been shown that gender portrayals in advertisements tend to be stereotypical, the presence of advertising is not the problem.  As Smith (1994) notes, advertising brings a wealth of information to children at the same time as it financially supports programming aimed at them (p.335).  Advertising is a part of our culture that will not go away.  Advertising needs to adjust its messages concerning gender roles to reflect a non-stereotypical portrayal.  Just as advertising can teach children stereotypical roles and behavior, it can teach them non-stereotypical roles and behavior.  Advertising and the media can be useful in teaching change and discouraging stereotypes.  Although things have changed, they have not changed that much.  Advertising and the media need to reflect the changes that have occurred and possibly encourage more change by depicting non-stereotypical gender portrayals.

Works Cited

Bandura, A. (1969), The role of modeling processes in personality development. In D.M. Gelfand (Ed), Social Learning in Childhood: Readings in theory and application (p185-196), Belmont, CA:Brooks/Cole.

Bettelheim, B. (1987), The importance of play. The Atlantic, 259 (March), 35-46.

Browne, B.A. (1998), Gender stereotypes in advertising on children’s television in the 1990s: a cross-national analysis.  Journal of Advertising, 27 (1), 83-97.

Courtney, A.E.,& Whipple, T.W. (1983), Sex stereotyping in advertising. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Ivy, D.K & Backland, P. (1994), Exploring GenderSpeak. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Katz, P.A. (1979), The development of female identity. Sex Roles, 5 (February), 155-178.

Klinger, L., Hamilton, J., & Cantrell, P. (2001), Children’s Perceptions of Aggressive and Gender-Specific Content in Toy Commercials. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 29(1), 11-21.

Kolbe, R.H., & Muehling, D. (1995), Gender roles in children’s advertising. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 17 (1), 49-64.

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