Media Socialization on Gender

Rileigh Arsenault

Sheridan College

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 The day we are born and sometimes even earlier we are put into the category of either

boy or girl by agents specifically our parents and family. Our whole lives we are groomed to be

in this category, that we don’t know any different from. We live in a world where we are meant

to believe that it’s black or white, boy or girl, but that is definitely not the case. The Mask You

Live In did a wonderful job showcasing how socialization agents’ effects boys all throughout

their childhood and also how it has affected them in adulthood. They had males of all ages and

backgrounds, that really showed that all males go through this socialization. This movie

specifically looked at the 3 agents of family, peers and media, and how they socialize males to

believe they are in a box (The Mask You Live In, 2018). The next movie Killing Us Softly 4,

focuses more on females and how advertising specifically portrays women and how it socializes

them. This movie does a great job not only explaining why advertising has such a powerful

influence on people specifically women and how this affects people throughout their lifetime.

Jean Kilbourne the presenter in this video, shares all kinds of advertisements and how women of

different backgrounds and ages are all socialized by these advertisements (Killing Us Softly 4,

2018). Both these movies then go into showing how this socialization of each gender affects the

other, for example how men’s socialization increases violence towards women (The Mask You

Live In, Killing Us Softly 4, 2018). Overall in this paper I am going to take a deeper look at the

socialization of gender, specifically in the media and how these documentaries support the ideas

with our culture of gender.

The socialization agents are institutions, organizations, groups or individual people who

through different actions socialize us. This occurs through our whole life and is how we gain our

own beliefs and values; through the effects these agents have on us (Henslin, Glenday, Pupo &

Duffy, 2014, p. 81). Major socialization agents are our family, peers, sports and mass media. To

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start our family is our first exposure to socialization and where we start to learn our basic sense

of self and gain initial motivations, values and beliefs. Due to our family giving us our idea of

who we are and what we need to get out of life it has a very high impact in our life (Henslin,

Glenday, Pupo & Duffy, 2014, p. 83). The Mask You Live In, does a great job showing this

agent within the first section of their film. We start by hearing the tory of Joe Ehrmann and how

it was his father that would be beaten if he showed emotion and told to be a man. Others in this

movie had the same experience that a family member would continuously tell the young boys

typically that men don’t show emotion and its not masculine to cry (The Mask You Live In,

2018). Our peers have a huge impact in our socialization because it who we affiliate while

growing up that will impact us the most during that stage in our lives. Again, The Mask You

Live In, captures this agent in a remarkable way. They have many young males sharing their

stories of school, one in particular; Roman, Gaby’s son. He shares how he was bullied because

he didn’t fit within the norms of masculinity and because that’s all his peers knew, he fell victim

to bullying (The Mask You Live In, 2018). Next sports have a high impact on gender and more

so the males than the females. Its this agent where males get their first real experience with

violence, either they are watching or playing a violent sport, where it shows its okay to act like

this (Henslin, Glenday, Pupo & Duffy, 2014, p. 82). However, females are also affected by

sports in the sense that its not feminine to play sports like football or rugby even if you want to.

Lastly, and what I think is the most important agent and that is the mass media, we are exposed

to each and every day. Media has a great effect just based on the fact that we are surrounded by it

almost 24/7; either through ads, our phones, etc. Both the films had an emphasis on media, ad

how it can socialize our gender. Killing Us Softly 4, is centrally revolved around advertisements

and their socialization on women. No matter if it was displaying the image of ideal beauty,

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sexualizing woman and turning women into objects, or even portraying femininity as submissive

(Killing Us Softly 4, 2018). Overall, these agents impact us tremendously, and the way they

portray masculinity or femininity is how we are going to live our lives trying to be within this

box they have created.

The Mask You Live In, has lots of arguments as to what has been socialized to represent

what masculinity is. Like mentioned above the common thought of males don’t show emotion or

aren’t allowed to cry is a thought expressed during this film. Next, they also used the sayings

“grow some balls” and “be tough”, showing that to be masculine you can’t show any signs of

weakness. Also, within the film they talk about an equation that makes up masculinity and it was

athletic ability + success when it comes to money + active sexual culture = masculinity (The

Mask You Live In, 2018). This equation gives a great general representation of masculinity, but

it is missing the smaller aspects that contribute to it. One of those smaller aspects is violence, this

comes from video games and media like movies, etc. always showing male characters with

aggression and violence. Lastly, Caroline Heldman makes a great point that in todays world we

showcase masculinity with the rejection of everything that is feminine, including personal

attributes like compassion (The Mask You Live In, 2018). When it come to Killing Us Softly 4,

they also talk about many arguments to what femininity is. One of those being that its all about

how you physically look, and women always need to strive to match this image of ideal beauty.

Also, they mention how women are sexualized and being feminine is related to be sexy and

confident (Killing Us Softly 4, 2018). However, to contrast that they then go on to say that to be

feminine you have to be passive, vulnerable and submissive, well at the same time still being

sexy. This is impossible to accomplish and is just setting women and girls up for failure, because

they are trying to be something that they can’t. Finally, femininity is also argued that you have to

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be young to be beautiful and sexy, so women fear aging because they will be seen a less

beautiful and that decreases their femininity (Killing Us Softly 4, 2018).

How masculinity and femininity have been taught within our society, is hard not to see

the problems that it could cause. To start, making it unmasculine to show emotions, leads to

males bottling up their emotions leading to behavioural issues. Having bottled up emotions can

lead to aggressive outbursts or to hide behind a mask. Also, The Mask You Live In, talked about

how this bottling of emotions also leads to a x5 increase in the suicide rates of males. Next, they

way we teach/portray masculinity, shows that males are superior to females and they have to

dominate in a relationship (The Mask You Live In, 2018). This could lead to an increase in

violence against women and an increase in the already existent rape culture in our world. Not

only will the way we teach masculinity increase sexual violence it also increases overall violence

and gang involvement. This isn’t just from how we compare males to females but also the affect

that video games and other media, adds to the image of violence. For when it comes to

femininity it is very dangerous the way we teach femininity to women especially young girls.

The biggest issue that Killing Us Softly talked about was when exposure to the ideas of

femininity, it increases a young girl’s risk of depression, eating disorders and low self esteem.

This is an issue because this can lead to worse mental health issues and possibly suicide. How we

showcase femininity to revolve around the image of ideal beauty, that is impossible to actually

become, is very problematic to females. It decreases a female’s self esteem, and this leads to

them trying everything in their power to obtain this image even if that is by means of plastic

surgery to eating disorders. Another problem with how femininity is taught in our culture it

teaches females that they have to be passive and vulnerable, which inevitably silences females.

When a female is silence and how masculinity has taught men to be more violent to females, it’s

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a recipe for disaster (Killing Us Softly 4, 2018). These 2 things together increases the risk of

sexual assault against women and their fear to speak up about it. Overall the ways we teach both

masculinity and femininity, is high problematic and needs to be changed soon, so that we can

change the culture surrounding them.

When it comes to my own gender socialization, when I was watching Killing Us Softly, it

was like replaying my teenage years. I had a really hard time during my childhood and

specifically my teen years (grade 8-11), and it all started with body image issues. It was right

around the time that the ideal body image started to become pushed into our society. I’ve always

struggled with my weight and looking at all these other women who were skinner and prettier

that me, lead me on a long dark path. It started with depression, I wouldn’t talk to my classmates

and I would come home and stay in my room all night. I always put on a mask that everything

was okay, and it fooled my parents for a while. It was when I started getting bullied by kids a

year older than me, that my life really seemed to hit rock bottom. I ended up being diagnosed

with bulimia, which changed my whole life, my parent found out about what had been going on,

I went to therapy for 3 year and started to turn my life around. It took a while, but I started to

then see a light at the end of this long dark path I had been travelling on. Just when I though I

was changing my life around I truly hit rock bottom. I relapsed with my eating disorder after 6

months, and again fell into a deep depression, I started self harming and had suicidal attempts.

This all changed when I realised that I gained my new support system of my best friend and

specifically my mom. This is when I truly turned my life around and have been on that path ever

since, even though there have been some ups and downs along the way. The scariest thing is that

I went through this whole situation for 4 years and it was all based on a simple little body image

issue.

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 Overall, through watching the films and my own experience I can say that there is a

problem with the way masculinity and femininity is being taught. It needs to be changed or its

only going to become worse, men will become more violent and increase suicide rate, and

females will have an increase in mental health issues and sexual assaults. We can’t keep setting

up the younger generations for failure, they way we teach them is an easy change and would

done less harm to them. The world shouldn’t be seen as black and white or in this case female

and male, this portrayal of the world doesn’t allow for deviation and if one does it is setting them

up for discrimination. In the 21st century we shouldn’t still be living in a world where we are

scared to be who we are, however, that is exactly what the film and this paper show. Our society

doesn’t allow for us to walk our own paths, we are forced or more so taught to walk along with

everyone else. This paper showcases the agents that contribute to the socialization and the

arguments of what masculinity or femininity is and how that is problematic in this world.

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 References

Henslin, J. M., Glenday, D., Pupo, N., & Duffy, A. (2014). Sociology: A Down-To-Earth
Approach (6th ed.).

Killing Us Softly 4: Advertisings image of Women. (2018, February 07). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnAY6S4_m5I

The Mask You Live In. (2018, February 17). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=I1OI9B0VSlA