Is Sexism Becoming A More Controversial Subject - 1153 Words

In this day and age, sexism is becoming a more controversial subject. With gender roles being portrayed in the wrong way based off of gender stereotypes, there is a lot to be changed. This shows that individuals are deeply affected by the gender stereotypes explained in textbooks given to students to study from. There are many effects including, students are taught to think a certain way. Females are specifically affected because they are directly treated unfairly. Lastly, males have been shown to be more favored in classroom settings. With this in mind, people are genuinely affected by the gender stereotypes depicted in scientific textbooks, whether it is realized or not. Throughout society there are several different occasions where†¦show more content†¦The stereotypes imply not only that female biological processes are less worthy than their male counterparts but also that women are less worthy than men.† (Martin 237). Due to the common stereotypes depicted in several educational textbooks, several studies have been done to see the effects of the gender stereotypes. A Study in Kenya was performed where scientists developed a textbook that purposefully had gender stereotypes, to see how readers would react. The males in the textbook were given more business related occupations, while the females were given more teaching related jobs. The students in the study were randomly asked to point out from the illustrations in the selected textbooks, which characters they would have liked to identify with. The results show that 95.0 percent of the respondents indicated that they would have identified with characters of their own gender. Only 5 percent of the respondents indicated they would have identified with characters of either gender in the textbooks. This analysis indicates that pupils were more inclined to imitate characters and activities illustrated in the textbooks by people of their gender. This ba sically just shows that children learn early in life of what the society’s expectations and standards for girls and boys. They also learn the gender code,