2.

Analyze a set

of advertisements or a television drama that construct femininity and masculinity. How are gendered identities achieved? What techniques used? And what roles assigned to men and women?
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Low Jo An 7G5 The media has given us false ideas of

masculinityand femininity. What are your views?

Television, newspapers, books and songs. These are the things that youa n d I i n t e r a c t w i t h d a i l y , a n d n o d o u b t t h a t t h e y i n f l u e nce our mindsets. What about the portrayals of masculinity and femininity? Y e s , a p p a r e n t l y i t d o e s a p p e a r i n t h e s e f o r m s o f m e d i a t o o a n d o u r minds are highly influenced by what appears to be false on this topicwithout us realizing it. T h e g u y n e e d n o t a l w a y s b e t h e h e r o a n d t h e g i r l n e e d n o t b e a n attractive drama queen. All the time, be it in television drama serials,movies, books or other forms of media, the male character is always of u t m o s t i m p o r t a n c e . E i t h e r t h a t o r h e i s t h e h e r o t h a t n e v e r s e e n a broom before who gets to save her, the damsel in distress whos lifeg o a l i s t o s h o p , l o o k g o o d , d o t h e c h o r e s a n d b e a r a n d t a k e c a r e o f children. Nowadays, there are househusbands and working women inour society. Currently in Japan, 30% of the married men would not mindbeing househusbands. This shows that the current society is alreadybreaking away from this false impression of what life should be in asociety of men and women.Unfortunately, children are exposed to this untrue claim at a tenderage without them even knowing it through fairytales. Famous fairytaless u c h a s S l e e p i n g B e a u t y, S n o w W h i t e , C i n d e r e l l a a n d R a p u n z e l a r e read by almost all the children and are also used to teach children todistinguish between right and wrong. Naturally, these fairytales put adeep impression on the minds of these children and unsuspectingly they affect the way they think and go about doing things in the future.Girls who think highly of the female characters aspire to be somewhatlike them and therefore want to be nurses, mothers and housewivesand the boys would receive more importance between the two gendersand will want to take care of the women at home in future. In a recentsurvey done on

3000 British parents, a quarter of them reject classicfairytales such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella more orless due to the above-mentioned reasons. These untrue ideas that lead to stereotypes, gender inequality and insome cases, gender discrimination should be stopped but, again, thereare still celebrities, books and movies being produced promoting theseuntrue qualities in men and women. Presently, although majority of society still unknowingly fall into traps of the media, part of society issimultaneously accepting the fact that what the media says or portraysi s n o t a l w a ys c o r r e c t a n d t h i s h a s a l s o l e d t o a n i n c l i n e i n w o r k i n g mums and stay-home dads. Men have also become vainer, some evenvainer then women themselves, who, by nature, are supposed to wantto look good. These untrue ideas of women being powerless, weak and physicallya n d e m o t i o n a l l y c o n t r o l l e d b y m e n h a v e c e a s e d . I n t h e economicc i r c l e , w o m e n a n d m e n h o l d t h e s a m e a m o u n t o r i m p o r t a n c e and p o w e r . M e n h a v e b e c o m e m o r e s e n s i t i v e a n d g i v e w o m e n t h e d u e respect, and gender inequality as well as false ideas and qualities of men and women are beginning to shed in our modern day society. Themedia should not give us false ideas of what men and women shouldbe like they are doing now.Word count: 541 words