Just a moment ago I finished posting an entry to the blog and figured I'd go in and spice the layout up a little and while browsing templates I came across two certain ones titled "Mr Moto" and "Ms Moto." Usually the difference between a male a female version of something is that one is more masculine or male looking i.e. colors, designs, etc... And my assumptions are correct. While looking at the male version seen here: Male, I outright didn't see anything masculine about it. But then looking at the female version seen here: Female, it is blatantly feminine in that our minds have been "tricked" into associating pink and Barbies with girls and feminine nature. But even then looking back at the male version it doesn't show anything that could be even remotely tied to a gender let alone male. So that brings up an interesting point. If the male associated template is not visibly male but the female associated template is overly sexist and female driven then is it sexist? Is it wrong to associate Barbies with girls? Not every girl will play with Barbies but a disproportionate amount of girls will. It is sexist though to assume that no boys will play with Barbies.
Unrelated tangent but still relevant: if you were to take two 3 year old kids, one male and one female. Raise them from birth until 3 years old to where they have no influence from media whether it be television, ads, etc... Do not dress them in pink or blue or show any gender differences between them. In a sense raise them to have no idea what it "means" to be a male or a female. Now give them two toys that the media have decided to be male and female, an easy bake oven and a play tool set. Would the male instinctively go for the tool set and the female go for the easy bake oven? I think that if it was done many time there would be no correlation between the genders and the toys. Because they have no sense of what it means to be a male or a female they do not know what toy is geared as a male or female toy. It is not until a parental influence or a tv commercial or peer influence at a school that they start to see a gender difference in the world. It is also at that point that they learn the sexist definitions of gender. I completely agree with 90% of the population in that the media has more influence on a person than any other factor and in most cases it is a bad influence.
Andy
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