It is always much easier to write when you have a prompt telling you exactly what direction you’re going in..

So, I decided to write about the prevalence of gender stereotypes in famous children’s media. We see children’s shows start to teach the construct of gender and assign certain behaviors to the genders, so as to make it impossible to reach outside of these constructs (otherwise defying the norm and being persecuted for it or discriminated against). Male characters are often depicted as strong, emotionally restrained individuals while females are agreeable, virtuous, and obsessively concerned with their physical appearance. This allows our children to grow up and think that boys cannot cry and saying things like “don’t be a little girl” because they see a young boy crying. At gender reveals and in nurseries we see the color pink correlated with the arrival of a baby girl and blue with the arrival of a boy, and then teach kids that boys cannot wear pink because it’s a “girl color”. In princess movies, we see the princess’ purpose is mostly always to find true love in a heterosexual relationship, and going to the extent of sacrificing many things to be with said man. We teach girls that they have to marry a man and be pure and beautiful for men, but then shame them for being promiscuous and wearing revealing clothing or too much makeup. There are so many double standards in our society and it just makes everyone kind of the same person with the same values and same goals in life and no one can truly be themselves.