According to the writers in chapter, “Gender Stereotyping And the Media”, gender stereotypes are harmful to men and women. Gender stereotypes set impossible standards for men and women that lead to unhappiness, loneliness and possibly violence towards themselves. Stereotypes affect relationships between a man and a woman. Moreover, stereotypes dictate the behavior of boys and girls that lead to violence. Rather than combating gender stereotypes, our society reinforces stereotypes by passing them to the next generation and giving labels and names to the people who do not conform to the stereotypes. Hence, the dichotomy is that our society buys into the stereotypes that reinforce abuse, while tying to remove violence from our society.Traditional female stereotypes rigidly emphasize the belief that women must perform the specific role that are assigned to them. From a traditional perspective, “femininity is characterized by passivity and sumission.” (Devor P.169) Feminine characteristics of passivity and submission allow women to best fulfill the role of a mother and a wife. Female stereotypes restrict women from choosing roles that are traditionally “male’ such as a father and a husband. The humor that naturally arises in this context reflects traditional patriarchal notions of gender. As stated in Devor’s text, “In patriarchally organized societies, masculine values become the ideological structure of the society as a whole. Masculinity thus become ‘innately’ valuable and femininity serves a contrapuntal function to delineate and magnify the hierarchical dominance of masculinty.” (Devor P.173). Stereotypical masculinity, for instance, is portrayed as natural, normal and universal. This is a masculinity within which women are subordinated and are compelled to conform to their traditional stereotypes as depeendents. Collectively, traditional women’s roles as mothers...
