Running head: Gender Roles and Medias Impact on Personal Identity

Traditional Gender Roles and Medias Impact on Personal Identity

Kaella Mitchell
University of Memphis

Gender is a concept that shapes our everyday lives. From the clothes that a person wears,
to the way that they wear their hair all affect the way a person appears to express a given gender.
In todays time, the concept of gender is changing every day. What was thought to be
interconnected to a persons sex, gender is now thought of as a completely different concept.
This is in part due to the media and its influence on todays culture.
Homosexuality was previously a taboo topic that many people wanted to steer clear of.
With television and print ads making more images available of different views of what it means
to be male or female, more and more people are coming to grips with the person who they have
been all along and are more confident in expressing that to the world. The traditional gender
roles of today are now becoming a thing of the past by todays standards of what it means to be a
male or a female in terms of what a person considers themselves to be regardless of sex. It is
important to understand these concepts in the world of education because teachers and
administration are going to encounter many of these differences and knowing how to deal with
them accordingly will make the classroom environment a better place as well as make the
learning environment more conducive to children who may not follow the traditional gender
norms. Gender and studying gender roles is also important because doing so may cause
individuals to take another look at their own perceptions of gender (Winsor, Murrell, MagunJackson)
Before discussing these concepts, we must first understand the difference between sex
and gender. A persons sex refers to their biological and anatomical makeup (Winsor, Murrell,
and Magun-Jackson). Gender is how a person identifies themselves. Gender is not a biological
component of a humans composition. It is now considered to be a choice and person is able to
choose from a wide variety of choices on who it is that they identify to be.

Gender Roles are those roles in each of our cultures that defines what we can and cannot
do or what we may be expected to do or not to do based on whether male or female (Winsor,
Murrell, Magun-Jackson). With this in mind we can explore the concept of gender in our
everyday lives. In our personal lives and culture, there are things that males do and there are
separate things that females do. In a traditional household, it may be the norm for a woman to be
seen in the home taking care of the children, cooking, and cleaning whereas the male in the
household will be seen doing outside work such as cutting the grass.
In todays time, many of the traditional roles that males and females do are becoming
more and more obscure. This is due to people having a different idea as to what it means to be
feminine or masculine. Research has actually proven that those people who have an equal
amount of male and female qualities actually are more successful than those people who are
solely partial to one gender in particular (Winsor, Murrell, Magun-Jackson). With that fact in
mind, children who grow up in households who have a more androgyny approach to gender roles
are more likely to grow up having an open mind when it comes to career choices that may be
considered more masculine than feminine or vice versa regardless of the media influenced world
around them.
Research conducted by Kerr and Multon took an in depth look at gender identity and
roles in relation to gifted children. The authors looked at in particular whether giftedness had any
correlation with gender identity, gender roles, or gender relations (Kerr and Multon). According
to this article, giftedness is defined as ones potential for exceptional achievement or eminence in
a domain. This is direct correlation with gender studies today in determining whether children
who have an open-mindedness to gender roles and the ideal that those people who have equal
amounts of masculine and feminine qualities are typically more successful.

Gender identity is considered to be a spectrum of beliefs and emotions rather than the
traditional sense of a dichotomy of male and female (Eagly, 2013 as seen in Windsor, Murrell,
and Mabel-Jackson). Gender identity is important in adolescent development because it gives
children a sense of personal belonging. Giftedness in children is particularly interesting because
these children have a different likeness than children who are not considered to be a part of the
gifted spectrum. Research by Kerr and Multon shows that gifted girls are more like gifted boys
than they are like other girls who are not classified on the gifted spectrum; these gifted girls are
also more likely to have the same achievement mindset as boys who are gifted, but gifted girls
still experience the same socialization as none gifted girls (Kerr, Multon). This is particularly
interesting because it further adds information to claim that people who have more of an
androgynous makeup are typically more successful.
Kerr and Multon also discuss that although gifted children are more likely to be on the
same accord in academics, there are still differences in the overall experiences that each sex goes
through. Although within the younger generations of today, there is more of an openness for
people who have gender differences and for those people who may express their creativity in
different ways, girls who are gifted still face segregation within the gifted community by not
being accepted into groups of gifted boys. Although they are more like gifted boys in the
academic spectrum and they have that in common, they are still not accepted on an equal playing
field (Kerr and Multon). This shows that although the times are changing when it comes to how
gender is perceived across the generations, there is still gendered and sex discrimination in some.
This is due to the fact that media still provides a vast impact on the way we perceive one another.
Although a childs home may have a more open approach to gender roles, the media still

provides a standard that is hard to ignore regardless of how much television or social media a
person follows.
It is important for educators to understand the gender and sex differences of the students
in their classroom. When students are comfortable in an environment they will definitely
perform better. With times changing, the mindset of the people within that environment must
change as well in order for there to be a grand impact. Children of today are able to express
themselves in ways that they have never been able to do before and regardless of their sexual
orientation or gender choice, they are able to make decisions as to who they want to be even at
young ages. There is even a change in todays time. Although television still shows very sexed
we more instances where television characters have different sexual orientations and gender
preferences. This shows that even though we are far away from where we need to be there is still
a push towards the right direction.
Overall media is a very big part of the traditional gender norms that we see today. Media
has the biggest impact on what people see because it has the ability to stretch across a much
wider audience than and other source. Adults and children alike have ideals starting at a young
age of what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman. Because the times are
changing, more people are understanding that sex and gender are two completely different
subjects and that they are not interchangeable. Just because a person identifies as a female in a
sex sense, they do not have to be gendered as a female. Traditional gender roles are becoming
more and more a thing of the past and teachers and administration have to step up to the plate
and help facilitate the changes that are occurring today. If the change can be in place within
schools, children of today will be able to help steer the world into the direction in which all
humans are on an equal playing field regardless of gender or sex differences.

References
Kerr, B. A., & Multon, K. D. (2013).The development of gender identity, gender roles, and
gender relations in gifted students. Journal of Counseling & Development, 93(2), 183191. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2015.00194.x
Winsor, D. L., Murrell, V. S., & Magun-Jackson, S. (2015). Lifespan development: An
educational psychology perspective. Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.