Humanities Homework Help

Directions

For the core assessment you will complete a data-driven project examining gender portrayals in the media or retail. Pick one of the projects described below for your core assessment gender project.

1. Stereotypes Obtained From Media Portrayals of Men and Women
2. Toy Store Visit
3. How are Females and Males Portrayed in Children’s Books?
4. How Men and Women are Portrayed on Television

You may want to review the following resources prior to starting this project:

• Literature Review Basics (Links to an external site.)
• Doing a Literature Review (Links to an external site.)

Your project should consist of a written submission. The written summary should consist of the following sections (with the headings appropriately labeled and in APA format):

• Title page
• Introduction
  • Goal of the paper
  • Why you chose this project
  • Specific hypothesis
  • Literature review (2-4 articles)
• Method
  • Materials: Materials include checklists, or software used for data collection (not data analysis).
  • Procedure:The procedure includes the step-by-step how of you collected the data for your study. The procedure should include:
• A step-by-step listing in chronological order of what you did during the study.
• Results
  • Summary of data (averages, percentages)
  • Tables may be included but should not replace a written description of the results
• Discussion/data interpretation
  • What does this all mean?
  • In general, were your hypotheses supported- why or why not?

Core Assessment Topics

Pick one of the topics below:

1. Stereotypes Obtained From Media Portrayals of Men and Women

Examine a set of televisions shows to see if and how the stereotypes of women and men have changed. You may focus on a particular type of program or sample across a variety of programs (e.g. drama, comedy, cartoon). Then, examine one episode of 10 different programs and record the following for each character:

1. Character’s gender
2. Character’s appearance
3. Character’s role (housewife, doctor, detective)
4. Character’s personality traits
5. Character’s behavior

Then compare the two sets of stereotypes. (If you are really energetic, conduct the same kind of experiment on a similar setoff shows that appeared on television 20 or 30 years ago.) A variation of this experiment is to review television commercials or magazine advertisements.

2. Toy Store Visit

Visit a toy store or the children’s section of a store. Take notes on what you see.

Can you tell which are the girls’ toys and which are the boys’ toys? If so, how?

Are there types of toys that are clearly aimed at boys or girls (e.g., as determined by their use of colors, pictures of boys or girls on the packaging, or other means)? If so, what are the differences between these types of toys?

Do the toy names and descriptions of toys on their packaging tell you anything about the assumed differences in what boys and girls are attracted to?

What are some of the toys that do not appear to be targeted specifically at boys or girls? Are there more of these “gender neutral” toys for one age range of children compared to others?

Where are the “gender neutral” toys located in the store? Are they hard to find? What strategies are used to attract children to these toys?

Pay attention to location in the store, packaging, color, and the nature of the toy. How are the toys different? How are the toys similar? Compare these toys to the ones you had during your childhood. Observe the shoppers, particularly their behavior relating to gender.

3. How are Females and Males Portrayed in Children’s Books?

Review 10 children’s storybooks. Record the sex of the main characters and describe how the characters are portrayed. What are they doing? Are they good characters, or bad characters? What are their personality traits? Do they display personality traits, interests, and behaviors that are typical or atypical of their sex? How do other characters react to them?

4. How Men and Women are Portrayed on Television

Watch one episode each of the 10 most popular television shows. You may limit your analysis to comedies or dramas or compare the two. What is the sex of the main character/characters? Describe the personality characteristics, behavior, and occupation of the characters in the shows. Are roles traditional or nontraditional? In what ways?