Gender Stereotypes

Throughout advertising, advertisers feature traditional gender stereotypes. Theories indicate that children learn the traditional sex roles by imitating their parents, reading literature, and watching television. Children learn through observing which behaviors are accepted, or rewarded, and wrong or punished. For example, if a boy is playing with his sister's dolls, then the parents would probably correct him by informing him that boys do not play with dolls. 

Sex refers to the biology and gender is a social construction of what defines people to be male and female. The difference between men and women biologically is that women have the capability to reproduce the next generation. This was one reason why, in hunting and gathering tribes, women were put in the position to gather food, bear and nurture the children. Men were seen as the hunters because of their strengths and agility. 

In relation to children learning their roles through television, they also learn through books geared toward teaching young children how to act in school. Children's books teach social norms and acceptable behavior for society. For example, books such as Dear Dumb Diary, Dork Diaries, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid discuss how proper femininities and masculinities are constructed, challenged, and reinforced in literature. 

For men acceptable behavior in society is to be tough without female traits and women are supposed to dependent on men and concerned about their attractiveness. This relates back to the gender stereotypes that began the division of labor in the hunting and gathering societies. Men and women rarely have the same power, privilege, and status. 

Along with television and books, advertising during children's programs teaches gender differences. Binary oppositions, such as aggressive/passive and active/inactive, are used to explain the differences between girls and boys. Girls were described as being passive, happy playing house, and inactive because they were shown being at home most of the time. Boys were described as being active, playing outside, aggressive and unhappy. 

Gender stereotypes began in our earliest societal form and still exist in our society today. Gender is a social construction defining what it means to be male or female. Children learn what is acceptable in society through imitating their parents, who learned their role from society as well; watching children’s television programs and reading children’s books. Children automatically accept these roles because they do not want to go against the status quo and be seen as different.