Learning about the Influence of Gender on Communication

 Recently, I had the chance to learn more about the influence of gender on our worldview and daily interactions through a speaker that came to talk in my Communications and Media class. This Wednesday, Billy Huff, a lecturer at the University of Illinois that has taught courses on: Gender Communication, Argumentation, and Social Movement Communication, visited our class to talk about gender bias. I was able to apply much of the knowledge that I learned recently through this class during the discussion led by Huff, making connections between gender and its influence on our behavior, perception of the world around us, and social status. One particular topic that I found to be especially interesting that Huff brought up in his discussion was how the differences in treatment of people based on their perceived gender could be identified from birth, citing the example of baby showers. Huff then went on to talk about a study that was conducted, in which a newborn baby was subjected to a crowd of adults while dressed in completely blue vs. completely pink clothing. The starkly different treatment that the child received while dressed in different clothing really uncovered the inherent gender bias and sexism that is still present within society, with the all blue outfit warranting countless comments about the child's future career, and potential athleticism and strength, while the pink outfit only resulted in comments on their physical appearance and prospects for marriage. I was fairly shocked and disappointed to learn about this study, as I did not think that newborn babies could be subjected to such blatant sexism so quickly. Despite the large impact that recent and past activism has had on everyone's perception of gender, the talk led by Billy Huff in my Communications and Media class and the countless discussions that we have had in Gender Studies make it clear to me that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to deconstruct the inherent misogyny present within our society.

Comments

  1. Khadeejah R.November 6, 2022 at 2:31 PM

    Great post! I completely agree about how disappointing it is to see how even young children are subjected to sexism and misogyny. People dress their babies differently, give them different toys, and paint their rooms different colors depending on their birth sex. There are so many ways in which people subconsciously teach their children to adhere to gender norms. I think the main way to make a difference is to start with educating parents because a lot of these actions are not on purpose, but they still make a big difference.

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