Issue of Representation, Subject and Identity, Discourse and Power - Gender Identity

Hong Kong Shue Yan University

ENG 153

Cultural Studies

Dr. K. Y. Wong

Poon Lai Ying

(152052)

Issue of representation, subject and identity, discourse and power---

Gender Identity

Biological gender is inherent. People cannot decide which kind of sex organ they born with, which means biological gender is something no one can change at the beginning of live. However, gender identity is totally different. It can be inborn or affected by some factors, such as family and atmosphere of society. According to Chris Barker, identification of oneself as male or female is a foundation stone of a self-identity that is widely held to be outcome of particular bodies and their attributes (294). Identity is a kind of personal feelings about sameness and difference, the single person and society, and what you have in common with part of people and what differentiates you from the others. Based on this concept, gender identity can be defined as the extent of acceptance or discomfort which a person manifests in terms of behavioral and emotional characteristics expected for a human according to biological sex, to show within the interaction with other people. Gender identity usually builds up in young age. In nowadays Hong Kong society, family, toys and mass media are three things young kids easiest to access, and these factors likely affect children’s gender identity. In the following essay, hidden messages that possibly affect children’s gender identity behind parents’ education choose of toys and advertisements will be explained and analyzed.

        To begin with, parent’s education is the first source of socialization to the kids, and it helps a lot to build up the basic concept of gender. According to Business Dictionary, socialization means the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, language, social skills, and value to conform to the norms and roles required for integration into a group or community. It is a combination of both self-imposed and externally-imposed rules, and the expectations of the others. There are many reasons believe that the family is the most important agent of socialization. Family is the primary agent of socialization; it is responsible for basic skills that are learnt to be a useful people in the society. Foe example, the skill of communication, mobility, right from wrong is learnt. One may argue that at a young age the family is the most dominant agent of socialization and thus has a direct influence on ones gender Identity. Family is the most important agent of socialization as the norms and values are learnt first and foremost from the family. Children are socialized into their gender roles and shaped in their own gender identities by the family in some ways. The first way is manipulation. Manipulation consists of parents or other family members encourage the behavior that is seen as some norms for the children’s gender and discourage behavior that is not considered as a norm. For instance, parents encourage their little boy to wear superhero’s costume in Halloween, instead of wearing princess costume. The second method is canalization. This method is that parents encourage and guide children to take part in some activities that are considered as the norm for their gender. For instance, parents encouraging girls to play piano and encouraging boys to play sports. The third method is verbal appellations. This means giving children nicknames or pet names that are “appropriate” for their gender, such as little fairy for girls and little hero for girl. The forth is different activities. This means parents or family members encourage children to involve in different activities, especially household works. For example, mother may ask the little girl to help when cooking meals for the family. These methods shows the reason why family is considered as the most important influence on children’s gender identity as it shows that children can be socialized into their gender identity by the family from a young age. However, most of the parents ignore the fact that everyone have their own right to choose what they want to be, including the choice of being male or female.

        Next, kids toys can be gender-specialized and there are some hidden functions and messages of toys which people haven not noticed yet. Toy manufacturers produce gender-specific toys towards to little girls and boys, which reflects some traditional gender roles. Children learn what it means to be a ‘normal’ man or ‘normal’ woman through those pretend plays. Although children may not like the toys that are ‘appropriate’, they may accept them and try to act according to their biological gender. While it is acceptable for a girl to have a room full of pink princess toys, she might still enjoy building a train track or crashing a car. Boys may enjoy building robots and shooting guns to make a pretend meal in a toy kitchen. Pink toys can be a representable example. Amy Pearson claims that, when we discover the rows of pink shelves chock full of pink toys in pink packaging; most of people think that is a ‘girl area’. Pink princess-themed, dress-up clothes are next to pink kitchen sets. Pink toy kitchens are next to the pink tea sets. Packages of pretend pink makeup exist side by side with fashion dolls dressed scantily in pink clothing. While your little girl may naturally gravitate towards blocks, squirt guns and action figures, she may start to feel pressure to succumb to pink pressure. Pink toys overwhelmingly are associated with submissive or care-taking behavior. Girls might learn that girls should take care of babies and cook, and worry about how their makeup and clothes look. Besides, toy stores also divide toys into ‘girl’s categories’ and ‘boy’s areas’. That may stereotypes what boys and girls should do at the moment or in the future.

        Last but not least, advertisements are everywhere in nowadays society, and children are easy to access to those gender stereotyped commercials. Among thousands of advertisement, fashion advertisement can be easily found as gender stereotyping, and it is a remarkable example. Many fashion magazine companies have taken the advantage of sexually appealing marketing by portraying stereotypical images of women based on the social and cultural perception of women’s beauty. For example, male models are relatively muscular than women and they are expected to be tall, powerful and decisive leaders in fashion advertisements. Male models usually plays a comparatively active, protective and dominant role when they corporate with female models. Oppositely, female are looked as young, apparently attractive and dependent individuals. However, There are a lot sexually distorted images of female models, which still appear in the most of fashion advertisements. We can see the information behind the sexually control images in many of the fashion advertisements. It is destructive to view our reality through the representation of advertisements because advertising does not concern about the complexity of sexuality and gender. Moreover, it represents a way of how people think about men and women should be seen. In another words, sex messages are widely promoted in fashion advertising and have been used as an appealing business strategy. Its distorted the reflection of reality has affected the general perception of sexuality and gender. Some high-fashion companies, such as Dolce & Gabbana and Tom Ford, the advertisements are strongly emphasized on the sexuality between male and female. Those posters and commercials usually look hot and erotic, most of them shows exaggerated male and female relations which male are the controller of the whole thing. They use sexual stimulation to achieve their goals. Not only is some of the content sexual but also insulting. In the Spring Summer 2004 campaign of Gucci, the female model shaved her pubic hair to feature the letter G. Besides, Marc Jacob’s advertisement for their fragrance also gain many responses from public, and they regarded it as too provocative and too sexual of an immature female model. By some means, some of the luxury brands take advantage of the public response of the hypersexual photography in order to promote their products with high efficiency.