Explicating Socialized Notions of Gender in Media With Undergraduate Students

• In Event: 44.051 - Paths to Gender Justice in Education: Theories and Practices

Abstract

The session will provide a pedagogical approach designed to engage undergraduate students in analysis of media, namely television commercials as a means to help them better understand the gendered water in which we swim and how to translate those new understandings into future practice.

Lorber (2000) argues that we are all constructions of our experiences and that from birth and sometimes even sooner we are identified by our genders. Consequently, we live in a media saturated world where individual identities are often tied to how we interpret, incorporate and/or resist media messages in their everyday lives (Brown, 2006). This can be envisioned as a social order, based on categories composed of set roles and expectations within a particular culture that clearly define the boundaries for what it means to be a male or female (Lorber, 2000). However, rarely do pre-service teachers interrogate how their own notions of gender impact their views of children's innate abilities and how those gendered assumptions can also impact their view pedagogy and student ability within a particular subject area (Scantlebury, 2009). School, and in particular, teachers play a powerful role in the maintenance of these gendered roles (Ringrose & Renold, 2010).

Media provides a valuable and easily accessible resources and examples for how a society is structured and the roles played by men and women in those media depict the overall patriarchal issues at play (Collins, 2011). “Gender still takes center stage in many brand narratives, and brands often find it difficult to attract the opposite sex to brands associated with one sex” (Avery, 2012, p. 322). It is my contention these gendered commercial ads are the best place to begin interrogating the notion for what it means to act “male” or “female” because they immediately make clear the boundaries of what it means to be male or female.

The process utilized in a series of workshops, where teams of undergraduate pre-service teachers' viewed wide-ranging television advertisements with the express intent of determining what gendered messages were being promoted. The process highlighted a simple and effective way to interest undergraduate students in making sense of the gendered context that structures many of our experiences and frame ways to interrupt these notions in future practice. Links to commercials, discussion techniques, questions and other key pedagogical tools will be provided during the presentation.

In all, this approach led to a healthy platform to question the roles we have internalized and envision new possibilities. After the analysis of the commercials as a group, also offered a productive entre into discussing other complex notions related to heteronormativity, transgender and biological sex classifications including intersexuality, which was the focus of subsequent sessions involved in the course. It can sometimes be a tricky space for a heterosexual, middle-class white male to challenge these notions in ways that are powerful for my predominately female audience.

[Note: References available upon request.]

Author

• Andrew Gilbert, George Mason University