Obviously, the media plays a huge role in shaping the public's views and beliefs. It always has been and it will continue to do so. One area in which its role is rather significant is that of gender identity. For whatever reason, the media constructs gender as existing in two forms: "boy" or "girl." Our group will focus on specific cases in which this occurs, especially in New York, a city producing one of the largest amounts of media reports. We will explore the ways in which the media both explicitly and implicitly states what is and is not socially acceptable.
This is important because so often the media is biased in its reporting, and it is important for us, as members of a progressing society, to be aware of how skewed certain stories are. We cannot accept that everyone must fit into one of two categories; the world is too unique and the people are too diverse for two classifications to ever be sufficient. Making people choose between boy or girl is forcing them into the most generic and restricting stereotypes that can very easily limit their potential in life. It is important in this day and age, with so many people struggling to discover who they truly are, to take into consideration the traditional views of the media, and the ways in which that needs to change if we ever hope to live in an open and accepting society.
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