Gender Roles: Female Influences

Description

This picture was taken in a local Shoppers Drug Mart, as we can see it is a picture of many types of beauty products.

Sociological Interpretation

Gender roles are considered to be socially appropriate behaviours that have been learned by males and females. An example of this is when you think of careers for men and women, women are typically thought of the care givers such as nurses and teachers while men are thought of strong masculine police officers or fire fighters. I will be focusing on the female gender role in our society and as we can see in the picture makeup is a female based product.

The media advertises makeup to help enhance a females beauty, and this hits home with most females because who doesn't want to look and feel beautiful? Applying makeup is apart of most women's daily routines, because it is a social norm for a female to use makeup to look her best. The question is why has such a simple thing such as applying concealer, mascara and lipstick become one of the most important things to starting a females day? It is because of our culture, I learned to use make up from my older sister, who learnt it from our mother and etc.

The media has catch phrases such as " Maybe she's born with it, maybe its Maybeline" and "Easy breezy beautiful Cover Girl", the Maybeline slogan translates maybe she's born with it, no its just our make up that makes her beautiful and the Cover girl slogan translates that their make up will help make you look like a cover girl. Is there any beauty product that wants you to look and feel beautiful just the way you are? Don't lose hope yet girls, there are many companies that focus on a women's natural beauty, companies such as Dove. Unlike makeup companies that focus on swaying a women to use their products to be beautiful, Dove has workshops for women and young girls to help them embrace their natural beauty.Dove also uses real life women of all shapes and sizes instead of surgically enhanced women and models for their campaigns. We need more companies like this in the world!

The makeup industry only has as much power over us as we give them, but because of the culture we live in, it is a social norm for females to use makeup to fit in with the gender role of being beautiful. The norms of gender roles are changing for the better, although the media still has its grasp on the female mind, we can now be less affected by the slogans and models they throw at us. We are beautiful just the way we are fat, skinny, tall, short, black, white or purple. As long as a women can feel beautiful inside and outside of her own skin that is all that matters!