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Ashleigh Beamer
Mrs. Martin
Advanced Composition
November 3, 2014

Gender Lens
Having grown up with two brother, a twin brother, Chase, and an older brother, Marty, I
tended to not hang out with many girls. To pass the time during the day I played video games,
football, soccer, baseball and anything else that you can think of that boys do during the day so,
naturally, I hung out with my brothers and their friends most of the time because I didnt know
any differently. This was a continuous thing that I would do when their friends came over until
about 2nd or 3rd grade. All the kids had gone out to recess and as soon as we all got all got out
there, the boys went to one side, the girls went to the other and a few went to the swing sets. I
didnt know which way to go because I wanted to go hang out with the guys because I knew
what to do there but I knew that if I did, that I probably wouldnt be welcome because they
didnt want to hang out with girls. If I went to play with the girls though, I would feel completely
out of place and not know what I was supposed to do. I finally decided that I didnt want to deal
with any of them so I went to the swing set with the other kids already there, but this feeling of
confusion happened every day, but every day I went over to the swings to play.

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Even as a child I noticed how differently men and women were treated from one another.
Women were treated with more delicacy and were seen as more fragile while the men were seen
as more powerful and usually got more physical with one another. Why is this? Why does the
American Dream affect people because of the stereotypes that we have created?

The gender lens forces us to focus on the issues that everyone faces growing up. We tend
to focus on the dominant group, generally males and the non-dominant group, everyone else but
mainly females. We, as a whole, have a specific image about what we see every gender and every
race as, thinking that this is what they are supposed to be. For example, the image we have for
females is a skinny, blond haired woman with perfect complexion, straight, white teeth, and
socially acceptable with her personality and looks. Our image of males is someone who portrays
success, power, and dominance, has dark hair, is tall, muscular and has straight, white teeth.
Women are supposed to be smart but not too smart, and successful but not too successful. Men
on the other hand are supposed to be confident but not cocky, and sensitive but not too sensitive.

Women have been seen as inferior to men in physical, mental and emotional aspects. I
believe that in the physical sense, women may be weaker because thats not the way that
womens bodies were made. But even knowing this, are women truly inferior to men or is that
just what we as a society have made it seem? I think that to a point maybe women were, but that
has been taken way out of proportion as time goes on and as media and advertisements continue
to portray women in the revealing, subordinate fashion. If you read Genesis in the Bible, you will
see what women were originally supposed to be. In Genesis 2:18 it says that the Lord would

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create a helper for man, not an object that people can use and get rid of at their own
convenience. This was supposed to set up a bases of the way that people were supposed to be
treated but somehow, we have twisted it so that it fits into our image of the American Dream
where women stay home and run and clean the house while the men go out and work and get
money to take care of the family. How then, does the image that we have now of the women
being helpers and cleaners, affect the way that each person can reach there form of the American
Dream?

We as a whole have an image that we see women as because of the advertisements and
photos that we see every day when we watch TV or read the newspaper or magazines. When we
see these picture in all these places, it slowly teaches humans what women are supposed to be
like and how they are supposed to be treated. In some photos we see, in the way the women are
being portrayed with a man, that they are being abused and mistreated, and because people see
these types of advertisements everywhere they soon think that that is okay. Are these pictures and
advertisements the reason that women cant seem to reach their full potential in what is now
considered the American Dream and are stuck in the stereotypes that we have created? Women
have continued to be treated this way in slavery, voting, and in almost all of early American
history.

In the book American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan, he talks all
about slavery and the way that the slaves, both men and women, were treated at that time. In the
beginning of this book, Morgan first talks about how, generally, men were working outside in the

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fields or doing the hard labor work while the women were inside working in the house or
working outside, but usually always somewhere near the main house (Morgan 90). Since women
were inside the house, it was easier for them to get raped or assaulted. When this happened no
one would really do anything because either people were too afraid or because it was something
that occurred often so they were used to it by then. Even then, women were seen as nothing more
than an object, just like the way they are sometimes portrayed in advertisements by either there
dress or by the way they are positioned.

Women in advertisements are always seen as size 0, perfect complexion, and straight
white teeth. When models look like this in the advertisements and they are selling a product, they
seem to sell more. For example, a diet study done by Jeff Neff shows that women who see a thin
model will be four times more likely to say no to an Oreo and are 42% more likely to opt for
reduced fat cookies if they didnt indulge. By seeing these advertisements every day, women
start to think that that is what they are supposed to look like as well and men start to think that
that is what all women should look like. Women arent the only ones that have to live with an
expectation because of what they see in photos and advertisements, though, because men also
have the same worry wondering if they fit into what is being portrayed in the advertisements and
photos that are seen about them.

When men are seen in advertisements, they are tall, muscular, dark hair, and straight
white teeth. Men who see these advertisements think that that is the way they are supposed to
look and that they always have to strive towards that. Men arent as bad as women with self-

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image, but they do have to deal with it sometimes. Both males and females have to deal with
rules that are placed on them by the people around them. When they dont fit into their
designated set of rules, others have derogatory names that they call those from a different gender
and the same gender. Women call each other names all the time, yet usually they just laugh it off
because its not bad for them to do that, yet when men call women the same names, then thats
when it becomes abrasive and abusive. These abrasive and abusive terms, for both men and
women, come when they dont follow the guidelines that society has placed around the genders.

In the reading Bros before Hos: The Guy Code by Michael Kimmel, he talks about all
the rules that guys have to follow if they are a true man. When Kimmel asked what guys thought
when they heard the words Be a man! he got predictable responses. He concluded that the top
10 things that men hear when someone says Be a man! all circle around this idea of never
showing emotion or weakness (Kimmel 609). If they do then they will automatically fall
outside of the ideal image of what a man is. Do the stereotypes that we have for men affect their
end goal in the American Dream? Because what would the ideal American Dream look like if a
real man were to fall outside the box that we have all created?

In Paul Therouxs essay, Being a Man, he talks what being a man is to him and his
perspective on it. Theroux says that even the expression Be a Man strikes me as insulting and
abusive. It means: Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly and stop thinking (Theroux 1). I
think that he has it right because this is how we see men as and we cant think about men without
thinking about these qualities that men are supposed to have. These things are taught to

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everyone at a very young age, but especially young boys. They cant go anywhere without
somehow getting told how they are supposed to act. These phrases are really only lies that we
have told, and by telling this to young boys, and even letting men think this is destructive,
emotionally and socially.

When women get abused by men society has a tendency to blame the victim rather than
the person that abused them. In Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt by Jean Kilbourne, it talks
about an advertisement for perfume with a slogan saying, Apply generously to your neck so he
can smell the scent as you shake your head no.(Kilbourne 422) This implies that when a
women shakes her head no wearing this perfume, it really means yes and that the man should
respond in the natural way. We as humans should be able to distinguish the difference between
yes and no, so why then do we ignore the difference? Also in this passage, it talks about a
case that went to court where a women accused William Kennedy Smith of raping her. The fact
that she was wearing Victorias Secret panties at the time was used against her but Smiths
alleged history of violence against women was not permitted to be used in trial. We, for some
reason, seem to blame the victim rather that the culprit. So, the question is, why are men and
women treated so differently? And how do these differences affect their future, their end goal and
what they can accomplish?

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The picture above shows two kids, who arent very old, already acting the way that
everyone tells them that they should. The little boy is acting tough with an angry look on his face
because that is the way that society has taught them to act because showing emotion or looking
weak would be considered unmanly or too much of a girl. The girl on the other hand has a pink
frilly dress on with a huge crown and looks innocent, just the way that girls are supposed to act.
This image illustrates what a significant difference girls and boys have growing up having to
look like a certain way otherwise they get called names like faggot, sissy, tomboy or quire.

So then how do these stereotypes effect the way that men and women can reach the
American Dream? I think that because we have these certain images about how they should act
and look like, that men and women dont even strive to their full potential because they are afraid
of the repercussions that could occur. Having this fear could cause people not to try to reach
there form of the American Dream if it doesnt fit into what men and women are supposed to be.
Men in the American Dream, for example, are supposed to be the ones that go out, work and get
the money to support the family while the women are supposed to stay home, clean and take care

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of the children. We want everyone to reach the American Dream, yet why do we not let men and
women reach their full potential by creating guidelines that they have to follow?

Works Cited
Genesis. New International Version. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Kilbourne, Jean. "Two A Women Can Get Hurt." Rereading America: Cultural
Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. By Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and
Bonnie Lisle. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1992. 417-41. Print
Kimmel, Michael. ""Bros Before Hos": The Guy Code." (n.d.): 608-09. Print.
Morgan, Edmund S. "Chapter 3." American Slavery, American Freedom: The
Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: Norton, 1975. 90-91. Print
Neff, Jeff. "Study: Skinny Women Better for Bottom Line | News - Advertising
Age." Advertising Age News RSS. N.p., 30 July 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Theroux, Paul. "Being a Man." (n.d.): 1-3. Print.