Saturday, May 16, 2015

Final Project



The media shaping children’s Future
It is no surprise that children are shaped by patriarchal believes instilled by their parents.  From an early age children are cocooned into an environment that promotes gender assimilation.  For example, baby girls preferred color is pink while boys is blue.  This continues through their younger years by assigning specific toys for specific genders.  Parent encourage girls to play with dolls developing their communication skills while boys play with Legos making them spatially aware.  This may have an effect on the development of children’s skills.  Since girls are encouraged to play with dolls and role play, their sense of communication is hyphened.  Meanwhile boys are giving Legos and train toys which encourage them to build and provides them with skills of measurement and a sense of space which later is useful in higher levels of mathematics.  Toy manufacturers play a role in producing gender specific toys.  In addition, toy manufacturing advertisements furthers this gender segregation. This is not only seen in advertisements but it’s also visible in television, movies and books.
            First of all lets looks at the differences among women and men from a scientifically standpoint.  Neuroscientists have confirmed that there are few reliable differences speaking biologically.  The few differences are as followed:  Boy’s brain are 10% larger than that of girls and their brain stops growing 1 or 2 years after puberty.  This is not an indicative of mental development but rather of physical maturation.  Studies indicates that males have a larger percentage of gray matter in the left hemisphere while women have the same percentage in both hemispheres.  Males have a lesser overall percentage of gray matter compared to women but have a higher percentage of white matter.  This could suggest why females are better at communicating among hemisphere while males are better at communicating within the right or left hemisphere.  The corpus callosum is larger and thicker in females than in males which is an anatomical structure that constitutes for higher communication skills.  For right handed individuals the language areas are located in the left but in females also the right.  The amygdala which is a gland that responds to emotional stimulation increases rapidly in teenage boys.  Lastly the hippocampus which is responsible for memory formation and consolidation grows rapidly in girls.  This hints at the reason why girls perform better in language, arithmetic, computation and task involving sequences. 
Boys and girls differ in physical activity levels, self-control and performance levels in reading writing and math.  Some other differences that can be observed according to Lise Elliot are boys and girls on average differ in self-regulatory behavior.  Girls are able to sit still longer, have longer attention retention, are patient for delay gratification and tend to be more organized.  All this is true but it does not justify the mythical belief that “women are from Venus and men are from mars”.  Men and women brains have more overlaps than differences.  Yet farther more consistent overlaps regarding academics and even “emotional abilities”.  According to Elliot on the playground, 1/3 more females are involved in physical activities compared to boys.  Studies have shown that girls have outperformed boys in reading and writing abilities while boys have outscored girls in math although by a small margin according to the National Assessment of Education.  This can also be seen on the Program for International Student Assessment.  Of course such results also vary on age, ethnicity and nationality.  It was found that there were no gaps in Iceland nor Thailand.  One may ask why and the reason is because “higher female performance in math correlates with higher levels of gender equity in individual nations”.    
                 This leads to the main reason of gender gap cognitive development.  Society it’s unmistakably the most resonate reason why boys and girls differ from each other when it comes to academics.  Epigenetics which is the way environmental factors such as parenting to diet “alter DNA structure, gene expression and an organism’s lifelong brain and behavioral function”.  As explained by Elliot “abilities develop in a social-cultural context that includes each child’s opportunities, relationship, sense of identity and more”.  This such biases initiate from prenatal hormone exposure or sex specific gene expression.  For example boys are more active, girls start talking one month earlier than boys, boys are more spatially aware.  Later on this develops on due to the preference in toys.  Boys like trucks and balls while girls like “verbal relational toys”.  This gender role is magnified by parental treatment.  More boys are sent to play outdoors, in this structure environment boys are attentive of space rather than time, create their own games and use more visual skills.  Girls prefer to spend their time indoor exposing them to language through radio and television.  The results of staying indoor allows them to be more of aware of time.  Mothers spend more hours talking to their preschool aged daughters while both parents expect more physical risk taking activities from their sons.  As Bell Hooks narrated in Understanding Patriarchy, “my brother was taught that it was his role to be served, to provide, to be strong, to think, strategize and plan”.  This is an undeniable correlation to the reason why patriarchal nations tend to have significant gender gaps.  Girls are expected to play games that involve talking, drawing and role playing while boys spend more time moving, catching, constructing and playing.  Due to this boys develop spatial awareness, the ability to visualize three dimensional object and orientation, all skills necessary to excel in higher mathematics, sciences and mechanical work.  Contrary to this girls develop phonological awareness which is a necessary skill to learn to read.  Statistically 20 % more girls than boys score in the proficient range as readers.  The gap continues to grow 38 % by 8th grade and outstandingly 47 % by the end of high school. David Sousa explains that “boys in secondary schools are encouraged by their parents and teachers to take more mathematics and science, their experience in such classes are more compatible with their visual and spatial proficiencies, and they thus score better on tests in these areas.  Girls, on the other hand, often encounter a stereotype that presumes females are poor performers in mathematics.  Studies have revealed that female performance on mathematics test was lower than that of males just because of the existence of this stereotype, called stereotype thread, and that female performance improved once the stereotype thread was removed.”  This so called stereotype thread is the causation added to this gender gap and can be traced back to social and cultural forces. 
            Society and culture have a significant contribution to the way children develop.  The media is an institution in which centers in gender display representation.  Ads continue to misrepresent women depicting them as “sexual objects or sexual agents”.  There is an expected behavior which follows an individual from the time they are born.  This in addition, to living in a nation which still holds patriarchy as the norm.  Children are taught to follow a path and if they “color outside the box” they are punished for their indiscretion.   
There is certainly a solution to this social problem.  It is important to begin nurturing skills and attitudes in students that will prepare them to excel in every subject.  “Make sure that the classroom remains a place where student’s potential is broadened rather than narrowed through misguided beliefs” as Elliot explains.  This is the key point, encourage students to succeed not place them into a boxed category based on their gender.  For example, at a young age children are separated by gender, teachers instruct girls to line up in one side while boys in the other.  It is essential to respect everyone’s individualism and honor their differences.  Also challenging gender stereotype for both sexes.  Teachers should avoid stereotyping at all cost.  Boys and girls should equally have time to sit and discuss as well as have extra opportunities for competition and physical play.  Appreciate and understand range of intelligence expanding activities that involve the arts and kinesthetic ability. Reinforcing spatial awareness in both boys and girls by the use of puzzles, map reading, targeting sports and building projects.  Involve boys in reading and writing by increasing their love for books.  Include boys in extracurricular activities that do not only involve sports.  Lastly but most importantly treat teacher’s biases.  Although each individual has its own believes, it is imperative that the teachers personal believes do not intervene with the students education. 



Work Cited  
-          Lise Eliot. "The Myth of Pink and Blue Brains." Closing Opportunity Gaps Volume. Volume 68 (2010): pages32-36. Print
-          Sousa, David A. How the Brain Learns. City of Publication: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, 2011. Print
-           Cortese, Anthony. “Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads Sexism in Advertising.” Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising. United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. 45-76. Print
-          Hooks, Bell "Understanding Patriarchy" The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, Dec 21, 2004

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