SOLUTION: Television and Gender Roles

Television and Gender Roles

Often in women’s history, we focus on the specific roles that women played in society, and for women in the U.S., this very often includes women’s roles in the family setting in particular. How did young girls know what their role was to be as an adult woman? How do we learn about gender and gendered roles?

Starting in the 1950s and the advent of the television, more and more Americans learned about societal expectations from the stories told in television series as well as the growing advertising and media about and on the same TV set.

As more households were able to acquire a television, the more hours families spent watching it. At the end of World War II, the television was a toy for only a few thousand wealthy Americans. Just 10 years later, nearly two-thirds of American households had a television. Because few households could afford more than one television, the phenomenon became a family event, and the messages of gendered norms were reinforced by this shared viewership. So let’s pick apart the messaging a little bit more, and see how it has changed – or not! – in the present day. Television and Gender Roles

For your initial post response, please do the following:

For your initial post, choose ONE of the images found in the section at the end of chapter 10 entitled. “Television’s Prescriptions for Women,” (pp. 784-802). Describe the image, tell us what it is (an advertisement, a series “still,” or a promotional shot for a series?). Where it was found, as well as the message that the image sends specifically in regards to AND about women.

Next, tell us whether or not you find echoes of similar messages to and about women in present-day media; are there advertisements that look or sound similar? Are there shows (on TV networks, cable, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, etc.) that send a similar message, or has the television landscape and associated media messaging changed, AND if so in what ways?APA

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