Class Race And Gender Analysis

Class, gender, and race are all simple words that have powerful meanings attached to them. The meanings of words are socially derived, which are negotiated through interaction with others (O’ Brien). We have used these words as a way to separate and rank people. This has led to the separation of society and has created several conflicts between people. This paper will be analyzing how the American society ranks people in terms of class, race and gender. It will also assess why these rankings influence our perceptions of people and how they contribute to discrimination. A reality is constructed through interaction (Mehan & Wood). These interactions are the origins of stereotypes. Stereotyping is normal for human nature. We stereotype as a …show more content…
Commercials often portray women as being submissive to men and objectify the female body (Kilbourne). In the film, La Haine, the lives of three men are followed over the course of a day. The men were portrayed as violent thugs that only caused trouble in their neighborhoods (Kassovitz, 1995). The media is a reflection of who we are and who we strive to be. This poses a large problem because the media often conveys the society’s dominant ideology (Marger). People turn to the media to learn about the world around them. The media holds a lot of power in our society, however the media has an agenda to influence our views. The news only shows us events that they want us to know about and they often skew the information to influence our views (Achbar, 1992). Knowledge is power. Without the proper knowledge, we have little power to combat these powerful images that the media shows us. It takes several years to get rid of these false ideologies because they also get passed down from generation to generation. Although slavery was banned over a hundred years ago, people are still not seen as equals. This is can be seen through the media portrays people of color. These views will continue to be passed down from generation to generation until we change society’s …show more content…
Whenever the sex of a child is discovered, parents and people work to enforce the gender role that they belong into. This is done by dressing children in certain colors to indicate what gender they belong to. Children have no sense of gender when they are born; it is a trait that is taught by the society that they grow up in. Gender is most commonly enforced when girls are encouraged to play with pink dolls, whereas boys are encouraged to play with action figures. Gender influences every aspect of our lives from what types of clothing we can wear to what types of jobs we can be in. Whenever someone does not conform to the gender role that they were assigned to, they often face lots of criticism and