Final Project--Erasing gender one stereotype at a time

The stereotypes for gender classification have been created over decades and centuries, by the media, industrialization, politics and several other factors. Gender has become very complex to break down all at once, but by looking at one specific stereotype, it begins to question the idea of gender and if it even exists. There have recently been several campaigns challenging different gender stereotypes (i.e. “Run Like a Girl” and the BuzzFeed video “If Women’s Roles in Ads were Played by Men”) but there are several more stereotypes that have not even been touched upon.

The "Run Like a Girl" campaign challenging

gender stereotypes of a girl's strength.

As I was talking to one of my friend’s recently, she mentioned how girls are more emotional. I argued that it is only assumed to be that way, since boys are told to hide their emotions and man up. This short conversation had caused me to start thinking of this idea of showing or bottling up your emotions, and how the choice depends on a person’s gender. I started doing research on the taboo idea of boys crying publicly and the results were enlightening. Going back to Ancient Greece up until the 19th century, it was admired and respected for a man to cry. It was seen as a way of showing honesty, integrity and strength. It made people human. So by denying men the right to cry, it is in a way denying their right to be human and instead causing them to be these macho, patriarchal-dominant figures.

One of the only ad campaigns for PMS, and 
it is blaming the women for their emotions.

And when you look at the opposite side of the spectrum--the stereotype of the other sex--women are seen as being overly emotional because they PMS and are therefore weaker. But what our society fails to realize is that men’s hormones change and fluctuate as well, which means it can also toy with their emotions. By only allowing women to be overly emotional with sadness or fret, it is showing these as weaker characteristics--that is, if we are following the structure that society sets of women being lesser than men. It denies both men and women to fully show their humanistic characteristics, and so it can be argued that gender limits people from pure humanity.

Through this project I want to exploit this gender stereotype of emotion, causing men to question what “man up” really means and for women to show their that biological characteristics should not make them any less of a person. By doing so, I hope to challenge people’s ideas on gender and question if gender even exists. I will be making a campaign PSA similar to the ones I had mentioned before. I want to interview both men and women from various ages (~12-60s) to show how this gender stereotype has been implanted in everyone’s brains in our society without even realizing it. I will have these be sit-down interviews, set up similar to the Dove campaigns, so that it will be a more casual conversation and viewers can feel part of the video. I will be asking each person a few questions, challenging their presumptions on gender. I might have an introductory statement at the beginning of the video, giving viewers a background on how many people were interviewed and why. At the end I also want to use a quote from Judith Butler’s piece Gender Trouble, and I want to post the question “We all have emotions, why does gender make us limit our humanity?” or something to that extent so viewers question gender in their lives.

This project is for anyone who passively takes in the media around them (so basically all of our U.S. society) and to enlighten them on the reality of their identity. I want people to question gender and hopefully realize that gender might not even exist. By doing so, it can help bring us a step closer to equality for men and women. I will be posting the project on my blog/portfolio to show with my other work relating to videography and my mission as a journalist to report in issues pertaining to women’s rights. When the semester is over, I will also use the feedback I get from class to improve upon the project and potentially work with nonprofits or colleges to sponsor the video and continue spreading ideas of equality.