In the dictionary one of the definitions of 'man' is 'the human race' suggesting that the human race consists of only the male sex. Television programmes that focus on evolution and how man evolved only talk about the way that man evolved and there is no reference to women suggesting that women came after men.
There is prejudices from religion towards women as women are not usually appointed as priests or 'clergymen', also people presume that God is a man even though there is no evidence for this.
In the play 'The Streetcar Named Desire' written by Tennessee Williams the role of men and women is shown through as the male being the dominant sex. 'Stanley' the dominant male in the play shows us that males are still portrayed as being the stronger sex, he shows this when he physically hurts Stella and when he rapes Blanche, and ultimately he destroys Blanches physical and emotional state. Stanley uses interrogative language throughout the play always asking questions to make sure he isn’t missing anything, as he is the dominating character within the play he doesn’t like someone to know something he doesn’t, he asks questions such as ''where you from Blanche?','What do you teach, Blanche?','then where's the money if the place was sold'. The portrayal of Stanley in this play is that of a stereotypical working man, ’of medium height…strongly, compactly built’ (Scene 1) this description shows his intense masculinity, William’s describes him as being ’the gaudy seed-bearer’, showing his superiority to women and his ability to attract and satisfy women as if they were his personal belongings.
Also in this play Blanche’s fragile state of mind portrays the theory that women are weaker than men. Although Williams tries to create the character so that it goes against social stereotypes because Blanche tries to convey authority and refuses to be submissive to the male characters in the play, Stanley and Mitch, however she doesn’t succeed and ultimately is defeated by the dominance of Stanley.
Stella, one of the main characters in the play, shows her submissive nature towards Stanley. In scene three when the men are playing poker, Blanche provokes Stanley by continuously turning the radio on, this frustrates Stanley and causes him to hit Stella. Stanley here shows his dominance over the women, Stella and Blanche. The same night after Blanche initially leaves Stanley she returns to him and forgives him, this shows the weakness of her character showing that she deems it acceptable for Stanley to physically abuse her, even though she is pregnant and the abuse could have caused harm to her unborn baby.
When Blanche questions whether Stella thinks its alright for Stanley to hit her she replies '...it wasn't anything as serious as you seem to take it...when men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen...' this shows that Stella makes excuses for Stanley and just because he had been drinking it was acceptable for him to hit her.
In the long running programme ‘Desperate Housewives’ social stereotypes are portrayed. Brie is a typical housewife who cleans, tidies and cooks in the family home whilst the husband goes out to work. Lynette is also a typical female stereotype because she also looks after the family home and the children whilst the husband goes out to work. Even though the show is about a group of women, the programme actually evolves around the male characters within the cast, Brie’s life revolves around the way that her husband Rex reacts to situations, Susan’s life revolves around the male character, mike, Lynette’s life revolves around her husbands life and his work.
In the long running soap ‘Eastenders’ dominant male characters are represented. Johnny Allen, Phil Mitchell and Grant Mitchell are essentially the dominating males in the soap and dominate and bully other characters. The fact that there is a conflict between the two families ‘The Allen’s’ and ‘The Mitchell’s’ shows the fight for dominance between men.
Another example of social stereotypes is in the long running soap Coronation Street, we can see the contrast between male and female sexual behaviour. Sarah Platt had a child at 13 years old and she was highly criticised for this, so now she is seen as a woman who will sleep with anyone. She is currently seeing the male character ‘Jason’, even though he has probably had sex with more members of the opposite sex than Sarah has, his sexual behaviour isn’t criticised by any of the other characters because it is deemed to be acceptable. Sarah is seen as a woman who will now sleep with anyone just because she had a baby at an early age and it wasn’t acceptable in current society to have a child at such an early age.
In children’s stories women are often portrayed as the damsel in distress and the man to be the hero and save them, for example, in the Disney film 'Snow white and the seven dwarfs', snow white is the woman and she is helped by seven male dwarfs and when she eats the poisonous apple she is saved by the traditional fairytale prince. Also in Sleeping Beauty the woman character is also saved by the traditional prince. Children who are at a young age reading stereotypical children’s books see many gender stereotypes, when the child grows older they find it hard to eliminate these stereotypes because of what they have learnt from reading books so therefore children from an early age are subject to social stereotypes.
In magazines the conveyance of men and women are very different, in men's' magazines women are portrayed as being something that belongs to a man whereas in women's magazines men are portrayed as something every women wants, therefore saying that all women need a man to look after them.
During the last century there has been many changes within our language to make it less sexist and offensive towards women. Up until recent years all people who worked for the police were known as policemen whether they were men or women, but as this was seen as being demeaning towards women they now call male officers policemen and female officers policewomen.
When Shakespeare wrote his plays women had a lower social status than men in society, in the history the inferior language used against women has often been associated with animals: dog, cow, bitch etc, One of Shakespeare’s plays demonstrates this. In the play ‘Anthony and Cleopatra,’ we see that Cleopatra is referred to as being a snake, ‘…my serpent of Old Nile, For so he calls me’
In Shakespearean times when plays were performed in the theatre only men were the actors, even if there was a female character it would be performed by a man because women were seen as not being good enough to be able to act.
Another example of the inferior language towards women would be the way that straight men verbally abuse homosexual men, they insult them by using words that often describe women ’sissy’ ‘feminine’ ‘womanish’ ‘pretty boy’ ‘nancy’, all of these terms refer to women showing that if they want to insult someone because they think they’re inferior or different then all they need to do is call them a women or say that they are acting like a women.
From looking at magazines such as ‘Max Power’ and ‘Loaded’ which are men’s magazines we can see that women are often portrayed as being personal assets of men, In ‘Max Power’ the parts of cars are referred to as being women.
The divide between men and women stretches as far back as common Christmas carols. In the hymn ‘Good Christian Men’ there is no reference to women. The title of ‘Good Christian Men’ suggests that all good Christians are men with no references to the role of women in Christianity. ‘And man is blest for evermore’ is a line in this song suggesting that only men are blessed by God and Jesus.
In Irene Davison’s ‘Etiquette for women’ published in 1928, masculinity and femininity are represented as two completely separate identities, almost two separate species, as she says that there has to be a set layout of dinner table at a dinner party, one of which that the man and the women hosting the party must enter the room together.
Masculinity is represented as the dominant gender, by virtue of its natural precedence, power and fearless spirit, this is shown in the line ‘the most important lady at the host’s right hand‘,’ the host…leads the way‘,’ carving is done by the host’.
Also the female writer has constructed an identity for herself that gives her a sense of authority which goes against the stereotype of felinity that the book promotes.
The social stereotypes are constantly changing, men and women are very slowly becoming less submissive to men mainly due to political correctness, which changes the way in which females are referred to in contrast to men, for example, the terms ‘actors’ and ‘actresses’ are no longer politically correct as all people pursuing an acting career are referred to as being actors, regardless of their gender.
Language and Gender Coursework
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