Since the start of recorded history, a person’s circle of society and cultural heritage have played an influential role in their formation of gender identity. In many developing and developed countries, a push for change has been made to equate the two genders and stop or limit gender-based discrimination. A renowned poet and writer, Kathy Pollitt, brings the struggle into clear focus in her essay Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls when she notes that while “the feminist movement has done much for some women, and everything for every woman, it has hardly turned America into a playground free of sex roles.”
As our world strives for gender equality, we are still coming to terms with our own individuality while trying to deal with gender stereotypes at the most basic level. The constant struggle of living within society’s perception of male and female and maintaining one’s own identity can be a time-consuming task. From the moment we are born, our gender identity is defined: little girls wear pink hats, and little boys wear blue, making it difficult to overcome what has been instilled in us since birth.
Females are targeted at a young age for things society deems feminine, like Barbie dolls, Easy-Z Bake ovens, and even color schemes. Conversely, males are targeted in sports advertisements, violent toys, and GI Joe action figures. The media, with all its sophistication, can deliver marketing to target a core audience with laser-like precision, bombarding kids with gender-specific advertising. However, if advertisers were to switch genders in their target campaign, there would be an outcry among parents, claiming advertisers were trying to influence their children to accept alternative lifestyles.
Many people claim to be open-minded and support individuality. Still, in reality, advertising a boy dressed in pink playing with his other buddies around a tea set or a girl blasting her playmates’ Transformer action figures with an Apache attack helicopter would not go over well with the general public. This was evident during the recent Gulf War, where there was an outcry from feminists and non-feminists about whether females should see active combat and be allowed to enter situations where they could be killed.
Gender roles are, without a doubt, hard to overcome. Society has misguidedly set boundaries, and any deviation from the norm is frowned upon. Granted, there has been positive progress in dissolving stereotypical gender roles, but much more must be accomplished. It will take a concerted effort to overcome the stereotypes instilled since the days when the first man and woman walked the earth.
