The Representation of Gender in Legally Blonde

Gender in Legally Blonde

Gender Socialization is the process through which one learns appropriate or expected behavior and attitudes for one's gender. In general, one is taught that women and men do and should act differently. These ideas are based on stereotypes; men are taught they should be masculine and women are taught they should be feminine. Gender socialization deeply affects a person's self-concept and identity as a gendered being. This process is studied extensively in sociology, psychology, and social psychology (Medicine, pp.201-235).

Gender socialization is a life-long process. One is continually exposed to a variety of ideas and situations in which one sees or thinks differently about our own gender and the gender of others. The messages one receives about gender, beginning in childhood, either reinforce or contradict each other, creating a constantly shifting idea about what gender is and how it affects personal identity. Gender socialization begins when a newborn is assigned the biological label of female or male. Gender and sex, although not the same, are connected and affect each other. Thus, the sex label we receive at birth will play a large part in determining our gender socialization.

Gender is an organizing principle in all societies, learned at the individual level and through social institutions. Although gender socialization is found in every culture, it is culturally-specific; there are no universal norms of gender socialization. Socialization is connected to the social institutions of a given culture, therefore, it will also reflect the norms evident in those institutions. Social institutions are those parts of society that show us how to act in different areas of social life. Historically, the social institutions that have most directly affected our gender socialization are the family, the media, peer groups, religion, education, law and justice, and politics.

Gender socialization begins in the family because these are the people with whom most people have the most contact at a young age. Most research on gender socialization, therefore, has concerned interactions in the family. It is through the family that we learn the jobs, behaviors, and attitudes we are supposed to do or have as women or men in the larger society.

Today, however, the media is also considered a primary socializing agent because of the extent to which people are exposed to different forms of media, including television, movies, magazines, and newspapers. Through the media, women and men receive gender-based images of how they should look, how they should act, how they should interact with others, and what they should own. Often, these gendered images are based on unrealistic and unattainable gender stereotypes. Their prevalence, however, leads people to act as if such ideals must be part of their own social gender identity (Medicine, pp. 63-69). For example, images of overly-thin female models used in many fashion magazines have been linked to a rise in anorexia and bulimia in teenage girls trying to attain the unattainable.

The toy and clothing industries have also been identified as important agents of gender socialization. Certain clothes and ...