Gender Roles in Today’s Society Today’s society many of us will see how gender becomes an issue. Women and men are put into a box of stereotypes causing everyone to wonder. Women have had a lasting effect on this, being view as only defenseless women and also race can be a problem. Men are also put in a box but women to this day are still thrown back in there. Disney is a very popular company. Many of us grew up watching their movies and shows. Many of us don’t see what they are doing until we have grown up and become exposed to how women are not treated equal.
Disney has many movies with showed many things be seen as stated here, “the author cited numerous examples of both sexism and racism in the films, specifically noting the heroines’ extremely pale skin tones, small waists, delicate limbs, and full breast. (England 556)” They have the image of women to be light skin, skinny, and mainly be more attractive to men. Disney shows that women need be the person to get the help, not them helping themselves. In many movies you will see the ‘princess’ will be confronted with some problem that they can’t face alone, waiting for ‘prince charming’ to save the day.
One example of how the gender role is applied is in Snow White England stated, “Snow White rescued the dwarves in a traditionally feminine way, by cooking and cleaning and acting as their surrogate mother in order to stay with them. (England 563)”. Snow White came to them and saw their house a mess, about to ask where their mother is at, again the mother a female role is used, she stops and she begins to do the work. She falls into the stereotype of picking the part the mother would do, to be nurturing. In Aladdin the princess once again showed how
Disney uses stereotypes. ““Stereotyped gender roles persist in how she was shown frequently as physically weak, highly affectionate, and troublesome. (England 564)” Many of us normally won’t see the problem with this until we have grown up. Lately Disney has been changing up the roles but the main point is why now? Young girls and boy see these thinking they must be like the people in the movie. That the men must be strong and also be there to help the princess in need, when in reality the men don’t have to be strong they don’t have to close themselves off to stereotypes.
Just the same for girls, they are having things put in their minds, such as they way they must look and how they must act. This hurts their mental health, they feel pressured to be like the idols they have from these movies. In the film The Princess and the Frog, the princess is looked as a very good cook and a good waitress and her mom was called “the finest seamstress in New Orleans”, giving both daughter and mother a successful career that is traditionally feminine. (England 564) In many English shows you find a Latino man or woman in the production.
Now many times you will see the Latino to be mainly in comedies, and also to be mainly males. They normally have heavy accents, not educated, and have a poor job (Glascock 393). Now going to Spanish television you will see even more stereotypes. Such as the leads, here the women would be the lead role, the percentage of female characters has increased from 22% in the early 1970’s to 43% by the mid-1990 (Glascock 394), but there is some certain things she needs. It is notable that there is preference for lighter skin color and hair among the Latinos (Glascock 392).
If you look at any novela it is rare when you see a dark skin Latina be the beautiful lead role. “Lighter skin characters on Spanish-language TV will be more represented overall and as major characters, have higher job status, and have more emphasis placed on attractiveness than darker skin, indigenous characters (Glascock 394)” In many shows the darker skin character will be the maid of the lighter skin character. This becomes a probably because it gives us an image of what the social status should be, only the lighter skins will be successful and the darker skins will work for a light skin woman.
Due this being shown to women it causes a negative affect. The shows causes a problem now seen as normal for Latinas of self-sacrifice that it triggers self-esteem, depression which can lead to suicide, substance abuse, and teenage pregnancy (Glascock 394). Many people might see that it is alright to have these stereotypes. People will say that they are traditional roles that the gender has played for awhile now. Some men might have some anger towards gender roles being removed because they might like to be seen as the breadwinner and have that thought of them being the top dog.
There are many people out there that depend on those stereotype to make themselves better. Many people will say that we should keep it to teach gender roles. In today’s society gender roles cause some impact in people’s lives, people will feel regretted for not fitting in the gender roles. Gender roles will always be a big topic, to lose or to keep them. Race also goes into how people are by into boxes. If you have lighter skin and hair you may be seen as more beautiful than a woman who is the same race but darker may be treated less fair than the lighter skin.