Gender stereotypes are something that children start to learn at a young age. Within our society today, kids learn what the definitions of male and female are. The men are the tough providers while the women are the sympathetic nurtures. It is through these stereotypes of male and female roles that they begin to form their behaviors. These stereotypes are emphasized through the characters of Jessica and Chris in A Tribe Apart.
Jessica seems to be a fairly well balanced girl that comes from a loving
family and appears to know what she wants. However, there are times
when it appears that she is affected by the stereotypes that women are
meant to follow. Simply the description of her room points her out
as a girl. “She flops on her belly on her bead, nestling herself
among the pillows edged in lace, the soft white angora stuffed cat with
a bell on its tail, the well-worn Curious George, and the Xerox copies
of magazine articles on teen pregnancy” (Hersh 1998, pg. 52). The description
goes on to illustrate all of the posters of men, pictures of friends and
family, as well as hair accessories and other girlie stuff! This
is clearly a girls room even if you didn’t know that Hersh was describing
Jessica’s room. Jessica’s room fits perfectly into Basow and Rubin’s
description that women are “expected to be strong in communal qualities,
such as warmth, expressiveness, and nurturance” (1999 p. 26). Jessica’s
room has the communal qualities such as pictures of her family and friends
as well as the expressiveness of her posters, articles, and stuffed animals.
The example of her bedroom décor appears to be warm and welcoming.
Are women programmed to do this? If she had more of a masculine room,
would people question her femininity? Probably. Does she do
it because she likes it, or due to the social role theory which states
that “our expectations of females and males result from the different roles
they have held in society” (Basow and Rubin, 1999 p.27). No one really
seems to know, but it is a question worth pondering.
One of the things that I really liked about Jessica was although
she did fit many of the stereotypical female roles, she also refuted some
of them. An example of a few is that Jessica wants to be a high school
football player and to get strait A’s (Hersh 1998, p. 53). Most girls
want to be a cheerleader because society tells them that is the way to
allure men. However, Jessica wants to partake in a predominately
male sport. Jessica seems to be a stubborn girl that knows what she
wants and often denies what society tells her is the proper female thing
to do.
Going along with this idea of stubbornness against the submissive female role is the way she interacts with men. Jessica, like most girls, has her priorities. For her, going into ninth grade, they are “her friends, her grades, and getting a Real Boyfriend” (Hersh 1998, p. 252). Although she desperately wants a boyfriend, she is not willing to settle for a man or give into sex simply because that is the only way to keep him. She seems to understand that although many of her fourteen year old friends are having sex, she shouldn’t. “Females are supposed to be sexy and attract males’ sexual interest, but sexually active females often are viewed negatively” (Basow and Rubin, 1999, p. 33). She is willing to look nice and flirt with the boys, but at the same time she will not have sex and she will not transform herself into something that she is not. Jessica said, “If I’m going to have sex, I’m going to have sex because I want to, not because I’m going to get it out of the way. I’m going to do it because I feel it’s right” (Hersh 1998, p. 255). This demonstrates that Jessica will stand up for what she believes and not acquiesce to peer pressure.
One of the points that the Basow and Rubin pointed out was that when women have “strong female models and androgynous traits seems to help girls resist negative cultural messages regarding women" (1999, p. 44). Jessica is fortunate to have this with her mother and also her father. Her mother is always there to have talks with her and protect her in a way that is not overbearing. In addition to a mother that allows her to express herself, she is also very close with her father and, even as a teenager, does things like go trick-or-treating with him. Her parents encourage her to be an individual, not a submissive woman. It is probably in part to her close relationship with her parents that she has the typical adolescent desire to please her parents. “One of the reasons Jessica strives to do well in school is to make her parents happy. ‘They deserve is and I owe it to them’” (Hersh 1998, p. 257). It is all of these various characteristics that make Jessica follow some of the female characteristics, however, not to the extreme of the submissive female that will not accomplish what she desires.
Chris, like Jessica, seems to be a well-adjusted kid that has mainly his stereotypical sex characteristics but at times can venture away from the masculine characteristics. He is the typical middle school boy that wears his “favorite short-sleeved Buffalo Bills T-shirt…, gray sweatpants,…over scrunched white tube socks… [as he] sits down at the table hardly paying any attention to his favorite morning rituals: watching G.I. Joe cartoons and reading the sports section of The Washington Post” (Hersh 1998, p. 38). It is hard to get much more male than a Buffalo Bills t-shirt and G.I Joe’s. However, these are things that he enjoys. Like Jessica and the female characteristics of her room, Chris embodies some male characteristics through his morning rituals.
Another way in which Chris demonstrates his masculinity is though his love of sports. As Basow and Rubin point out, “men are expected to be strong in agentic qualities, such as competency, instrumentality, and activity” (1999, p. 26). A lot of this is demonstrated through his love of football, lacrosse, and challenges with his friends. As Hersh writes, “They [Chris and his friends] are wildly competitive in the classroom and on the playing field, all striving for excellence. They have challenged each other in soccer, football, and basketball since they were little boys. They try to write longer stories than each other, get more A’s, win more awards, but all in good humor” (1998, p. 39). Boys love to challenge each other and be the best. This is part of the competency that they love.
Fortunately for Chris, he doesn’t seem to have many of the problems that were outlined in Gurian’s A Fine Young Man. He is not one of the adolescent boys that are four times more likely than adolescent girls to be diagnosed as emotionally disturbed or suicidal (Gurian 1998, p. 12). Boy are also four times more likely to drop out of school and ninety percent more likely to have discipline problems than the girls. Additionally, there are ten percent more women attending college. These statistics and more exemplify the scary and threatening situations that boys must endure during their younger years.
Instead, Chris’s biggest problems are his girlfriend Kim and problems with the boys in his science class. Granted, as Hersh points out, he does have “new concerns about what styles are right, what hobbies are cool, and new notions about what their social lives should be” (1998, p 237). Yet, despite trying to find out what the social norm for their lives is, Chris is strong enough in who he is and the values he has, so that although he knows that, “a lot of ‘cool’ kids are involved in the fast track of parties, drinking, even sex, he is not interested” (1998, p.236). He doesn’t feel the need to be the tough stereotypical man. He does however fit into the stereotype of the prosocial popular boy. He is athletic, academically competent, friendly, humorous, cooperative, and non-aggressive (A. Ryan, personal communication, March 17, 2002). However, he seems to do what he feels is right regardless of what society dictates as the proper actions to take.
Stereotypes are a very real thing for everyone in society, but especially
for adolescence during their formative years. How many of the gender
differences come from stereotypes and how many are simply differences in
gender is undetermined. However, it remains clear that both Jessica
and Chris have retained some of their sexes stereotypical roles.
Yet, neither one of them seems to feel threatened, or restricted, to the
roles they have taken up.
Work Cited
Basow, S.A & Rubin, L.R. (1999). Gender Influences on Adolescent
Development. In N. G. Johnson, M.C. Roberts, & J. Worell (Eds.)
Beyond Appearance: A New Look at Adolescent Girls (pp. 25-52). Washington,
DC: APA Books.
Gurian, M. (1998) A Fine Young Man: What Parents, Mentors, and Educators
Can Do to Shape Adolescent Boys into Exceptional Men (pp. 11-26).
NY Penguin Putnam, Inc.
Hersch, P. (1998). A Tribe Apart: A Journey Into the Heart of American
Adolescence. New York: Random House.
