Ashford University Week 3 Gender Stereotyping Discussion

Each response to a peer should be a minimum of 75 words. Be sure to relate your discussion back to the course materials and move the conversation forward by asking a question, raising a new point, or elaborating more thoroughly upon a point already raised.

Response 1

You are right about gender stereotyping being the result of socialization. There is great cultural variability throughout the world when it comes to gender stereotypes, like you mention. Russia is an interesting example. In Russia the majority of medical doctors are women. However, the profession does not hold the status it does in the U.S. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, in general, although legally men and women are equal, Russia is a male-centric society. Second, in the past being a doctor was a low state-paid position. Both reasons contribute girls being encouraged in science. It is considered a lower-status field to go into. I wonder what the Draw-a-Scientist study results would be like in Russia.

Response 2

What can you tell about the area? Is it urban, suburban, or rural? I chose to do the area that I live in. We live in a rural area, in my area they’re only one-story homes. There

What kind of buildings are there? The buildings that are in my area are mostly trailer homes and there are a couple of houses.

Do the buildings look like single family houses or apartments? They are single family homes.

How many stories are they? They are mostly one-story but there is one house that is a two-story, the rest are trailer homes.

How much space is there between buildings? In the spot that I live there are three trailers and I am about thirty-five feet away from my neighbors to my left and about double that from my other neighbors that lives on the hill.

Are there yards and gardens? If so, what is in those yards and gardens? We each have a yard but there are no gardens unless you count the flowerpots that some of us have on our porches.

What kind of vehicles do you see in this neighborhood? There are mostly small cars like the Honda Accord and large trucks like a GMC Serria.

What is the likely socioeconomic status of the people who live there, based on the buildings, vehicles, and yards?

What do you think the everyday lives are like for the people who live there? The area that I live in I am going to saw is low to middle class families. Most everyone around me works a nine to five if not a twelve-hour shift. Usually my neighbors are leaving first thing in the morning and getting back a couple hours before dark, from there I am sure dinner is cooking due to the smell in the air, after that I see children running around, then about after an hour maybe, it is dark. We are basically a working area.

Do your observations fit with your knowledge of what this area is like? How do your observations fit with the two articles you read? Yes, I do believe that my observations of the spot where I live perfectly fits though, but I think that after reading “Scientists can now figure out detailed, accurate neighborhood demographics using Google Street View photos” I paid more attention to everything else around me, including up the road a bit. I never noticed just how many people had a pool, how many treed areas were around me, or that there was a higher-class neighborhood right up the road from me. (I learned that from the instant street view website.)

Response 3

When you picture a scientist, what does that person look like? When you were a child, how did you picture scientists?

When I picture a scientist these days, for some reason, I see a Black woman; Though That was not always the case. When I was younger, scientists, doctors, lawyers, always seemed to be older White men, so for years, I associated them with those types of professional careers. However, in today’s worldview, thanks to learning about Mae Jemison, Katherine Johnson, Alice Ball, Jewel Plummer, Yvonne Clark, and many other Black women scientists, I now have a different view of scientists. 

What role does gender stereotyping play in the tendency for girls to grow up to be scientists?

Gender stereotyping puts women and men in boxes that they have to fight their way out of to prove themselves one way or another. These boxes attempt to limit what women will accomplish and they also shape how people see us. “Gender stereotypes of scientists not only shape adolescent girls’ and boys’ perceptions of who is a scientist but also influence their perceptions of who can be a scientist” (Yong, 2018, para. 6). These perceptions start from a very young age. They inform girls what we think we can accomplish and they inform boys what they think girls can do and how they should treat girls within certain careers. Gender stereotyping makes us believe that men use their brains, therefore jobs like scientists, lawyers, doctors are great careers for them. While women use their emotions, therefore jobs like moms, caregivers, therapists are great careers for women. So women will be encouraged to search out positions that allow them to tap into their emotional, nurturing side instead of the more male-dominated careers, I mentioned above. Essentially, the way society sees it is that men hunt and women cook what the men bring home (Crapo, 2013). This is not always the way. Especially since the need to hunt for our food is darn near obsolete. Men and women both now bring home the bacon and they both cook it. 

How does this vary around the world?

Gender stratification affects these gender stereotypes around the world. “Where gender stratification is significant, women’s social power or honor, or both, are low” (Crapo, 2013, p. 38). This is because gender stratification focuses on putting people and things in the place where society deems it should be. White men are the top and everything else goes in their own specific order below that. Stratification in and of itself is harmful. Patriarchy is subscribed to by both men and women just as white supremacy is upheld by more than just white people. Within a more egalitarian society, women and men are on a more even playing field. Gender differences exist but not in a way that hinders or harms the other. 

What kind of cultural messages do we send to children by the way different professions are portrayed in the media, books, movies, and television?

Something great has happened in recent years in movies, in books, and on television. Women have been cast in roles that defy the patriarchy. Women are professors, lawyers, doctors, and scientists. For example, in the television show, How to Get Away With Murder, Annaliese Keating was a law professor as well as a practicing defense lawyer. In the film and comic book, Black Panther, Princess Shuri is the lead scientist behind all of the inventions in Wakanda, Rest In Peace Chadwick Boseman. In Grey’s Anatomy, the lead doctors in that show are all women, Black, White, and Asian! In children’s shows, there is Doc McStuffins, which inspires little Black girls to dream about being doctors. Though these strides have been made in recent history, there is still so much more to be done. 

How can we help all children overcome stereotypes that may influence their educational performance?

We can help children by not allowing them to be put into boxes. If we hear them speaking in gender norms, we can address it directly in the moment. For example, if we hear a little girl saying that she can’t do something because she’s a girl, we nip it in the bud immediately. If we see little boys saying that a girl does something well “for a girl”, we nip that in the bud. We explain that there is nothing that can stop them when they set their mind to it, whether they are a boy or girl. We enforce hard work despite gender. Ensure that they know that gender, like race is a social construct meant to keep us in boxes. We must break out of those boxes.