Female, Male, Both, Neither?

This week in class has been one of my favorite weeks so far.  This week really made me think and reflect about something that seems so simple-being masculine, feminine, or both. Although we watched a lot of videos in class, each and every one of them really made a clear point.  I personally, really liked the According to Gym episode.  The show portrayed males as pigs, conceited, forgetful, sexual, athletic, insensitive, rude, and competitive. The episode then portrayed women as the complete opposite of men making them, sensitive, talkative, social, concerned about weight, clueless about sports, and needy. This look at men and women as completely opposite goes hand and hand with what the narrator was saying in the movie Gender Codes. In Gender Codes they compare the way men and women pose for pictures.  Women tend to have canting postures, which include being off center, knees bent, leg(s) up, faced sideways, head tilt, and arms on the body.  These poses all put women is a position of being vulnerable, defenseless, and accepting submissiveness.  On the other side men pose completely different, with their head low, hands in the pockets or folded, and confident.  They are NEVER off balance or pictured laying down touching their face. The reason behind this is because if men were posed like women, the message of the add would come off as a homosexual add, which are extremely rare.  These poses along with what Goffman calls "ritualization of subordination."   These poses are how we perceive males or females to be because of the media, and gender codes.  As it turns out though, these codes have changed. Both men and women have become objects of desire for the opposite sex.  The physical appearance such as big chested, muscles, athleticism, and clothes have become what we want in our partner.  We want to have the most attractive spouse.  Because of this, as shown in Killing Me Softly, women and men want to look like the models shown in ads even though we know it is impossible because of all the editing.  Women think that men are judging women, but in reality the women are more judgmental than the men.  The media has effected our gender roles greatly, and as Cindy Crawford could not have said it any better, "I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford."