The Influence of Gender in American Popular Culture Essay

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Popular Culture in the form of media does not always do a fair job of reflecting accurate characteristics of men and women. Society has added to this by creating what is known as gender roles among men and women. They are like a type of social guidelines which men and women follow in order to be accepted by today's society. Although this was designed with the best intentions it can have negative results.

There are many examples of gender roles playing a part in our society. Television serves as one of the most common "voices" for the social guidelines; it reflects dominant social values to its audience which in turn reinforces them by presenting them as the norm. Television implies that it's a man's world buy usually placing men …show more content…
They make young kids feel as though they have the right to act this way too. It keeps kids minds away from the important things in life, like school, and focuses them on material things. Children today seem to be skipping through their childhood and going straight to adulthood. Today's pop culture is robbing children of their youth and carefree times of life. Children don't seem to play in the park anymore or just run around and be silly, they are mostly focused on how they look and what they have.

The influences of today's pop music stars, like Ashlee Simpson and "Fergie" a.k.a. Stacy Ann Ferguson; bring these "plastic", fake, ideal woman qualities even more so to life. Their perfect bodies and expensive clothing make them desirable to men which in turn forces women to feel as though they should be nothing less. They can't seem to get past that they are entertainers and their job is to entertain the world with their looks and personality. Girls make these type of star their idols and hope to be them one day. Since it's impossible for them to achieve this they always feel as though they are never good enough and go through life hating themselves. This low self-worth affects how they perform in the workforce when they are adults. They are more likely to be taken advantage since they tend to not stand up for themselves. They take lesser paying jobs just because they feel as though they are not worth more. If you look at most of today's
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