How the Media Affects Preschool Age Children and Their View of Gender Roles.
I have two parents who are loving, very supportive, and after 23 years of marriage are still as happy as they were the day they first met. I attending an all girl's high school, where I wore a skirt and tights every day for 4 years, and loved it. With all of this in mind you might think I am quite a girly girl, but what is the definition of this, and furthermore what do the things I have told you have anything to do with being one? Well these things could all have a lot to do with what people in today's society consider a girly girl. I however do not fit into that stereotype. I was the girl who played all the sports in school. I dressed in pants and boys shirts, in fact in terms of stereotypes I was what people call a tom boy. I think the only doll I ever had was a Barbie doll whose hair I shaved to make it look more like a boy. I have always been closer to my father then to my mother, my mother was a cheerleader her whole life, while I took my fathers path as the more jock athlete. I can remember always being friends with girls who dressed very girly but it never was appealing to me to dress like them. I think, however that there are reasons for this. I think that television and the main stream media have a great deal of an effect on children today. I see less girls dressing like boys at a young age, and more girls who dress in skirts, dresses, and frilly clothing. I believe that all of these things have a great deal to do with what children hear and see on television, in movies, and in music.
Children today are introduced to television at a very young age. By the preschool age, children are already watching, on average, 21 hours of television a week. On television a child at any age can watch a family who places roles on the mother such as cleaning and taking care of the children, while the father leaves to go to work every morning.
