Chapter Two: Literature Review
2.1. Language and Gender in Disney Discourse
Gender representation combines two very controversial terms: gender that is as Glover and Kaplan (2009) describe “one of the busiest, most restless terms in the English language” (p. 1) and representation that is one of the widest terms with different manifestations. Both the terms are changing, developing, and being used in different fields of research. This section starts defining both gender and representation as abstract concepts, tracing the development of Gender Studies as an independent field of research in relation to other fields. This development paved the way to the emergence of language and gender as a discipline. Then, the section points out different …show more content…
With the liberation movements that appeared at that time, plenty of studies, women’s studies mostly, were carried out, which eventually led to the emergence of Gender Studies as a discipline. Although Gender Studies is still considered a young and expanding discipline, its concepts are matters of controversy. One of which is identifying the extent to which the fundamental biological and physiological differences can affect males’ and females’ behaviour, hence their gender roles and identities. Eckert & McConnell-Cinet (2003) state that gender “exaggerates biological difference and, indeed, carries biological difference into domain in which it is completely irrelevant” (p. 10). Meaning that, sometimes what we perform, which is enforced by society, can be totally irrelevant to our sex. It is culturally assumed that females and males constitute two extremes of traits. Females, on the one hand, represent the suppressed group with the negative characteristics as passiveness, weakness, dependence, and emotionality; males, on the other hand, comprise the dominant groups with the positive characteristics such as strangeness, activity, independence, and rationality (Ho, 2009). It is apparent that these tags to females and males are not natural and inherent, but are socially and culturally constructed and supported. Thus, there is not any reliable reference to why girls should prefer pink and Barbie dolls, while boys should prefer blue and cars. Such actions are imposed to represent the culturally-constructed image of both males and females, which is affected by the society’s attitudes and behaviours towards them. These assumptions are only decided by society; consequently they differ considerably among cultures and communities, and over time. We can conclude then that we cannot build
2.1. Language and Gender in Disney Discourse
Gender representation combines two very controversial terms: gender that is as Glover and Kaplan (2009) describe “one of the busiest, most restless terms in the English language” (p. 1) and representation that is one of the widest terms with different manifestations. Both the terms are changing, developing, and being used in different fields of research. This section starts defining both gender and representation as abstract concepts, tracing the development of Gender Studies as an independent field of research in relation to other fields. This development paved the way to the emergence of language and gender as a discipline. Then, the section points out different …show more content…
With the liberation movements that appeared at that time, plenty of studies, women’s studies mostly, were carried out, which eventually led to the emergence of Gender Studies as a discipline. Although Gender Studies is still considered a young and expanding discipline, its concepts are matters of controversy. One of which is identifying the extent to which the fundamental biological and physiological differences can affect males’ and females’ behaviour, hence their gender roles and identities. Eckert & McConnell-Cinet (2003) state that gender “exaggerates biological difference and, indeed, carries biological difference into domain in which it is completely irrelevant” (p. 10). Meaning that, sometimes what we perform, which is enforced by society, can be totally irrelevant to our sex. It is culturally assumed that females and males constitute two extremes of traits. Females, on the one hand, represent the suppressed group with the negative characteristics as passiveness, weakness, dependence, and emotionality; males, on the other hand, comprise the dominant groups with the positive characteristics such as strangeness, activity, independence, and rationality (Ho, 2009). It is apparent that these tags to females and males are not natural and inherent, but are socially and culturally constructed and supported. Thus, there is not any reliable reference to why girls should prefer pink and Barbie dolls, while boys should prefer blue and cars. Such actions are imposed to represent the culturally-constructed image of both males and females, which is affected by the society’s attitudes and behaviours towards them. These assumptions are only decided by society; consequently they differ considerably among cultures and communities, and over time. We can conclude then that we cannot build