Childhood television response by Melissa Monsalve

     While doing the work for my presentation and seeing and listening to the presentations others gave, it made me realize how gender has become such an integral part of our lives. It's not necessary, but the way the society and media use it makes it seem that it is at the very core of our being to be gendered either male or female, down to whether there are eyelashes on a butterfly or not.
    Gender roles in children's television is now, to me, one of those things that once it's pointed out to you it's the only thing you can see. How the female characters talk and how annoying it sounds. How it's the male characters that do most of the action and talking throughout the show. And this goes beyond childhood television; it's all over every type of programming and movies. It just that when it comes to programming geared towards children, the expectation is that it will be wholesome, so as to not toy with a child's innocence. And when one compares the gender roles in regular programming and childhood television, there are very obvious differences, but even the most subtle things, such as the color a character wears or the way they stand according to their assigned gender, says a lot. Some people underestimate the fact that young kids pick up on those subtleties and eventually attribute them to gender like they are taught on tv and from other outlets.
     So what is a parent to do if they do not want their child exposed to this type of gender training? It seems like it's near impossible to avoid that "hidden curriculum" even on television or in movies. Either way, whether or not the child is not exposed to it while the parent can control what they watch, the child will eventually be exposed to that type of information somehow, and I can't help but wonder whether it's good or bad to keep kids sheltered from that information when they're that young. It does seem like a good idea, but is it possible that it may have negative effects in the long run? Being exposed to gender norms isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it turns into a bad thing when we can't recognize it and make an effort to change it. It's also not the child's fault that they are gendered because they didn't ask for it. I'd be interested in looking at studies involving kids that were raised in an environment that was as gender neutral as possible and how they acted/dressed/did academically as they got older after being exposed to gender roles/norms for a few years.