Dreams about the future

How boys and girls perceive gender roles

Miroslava, Ž, Malešević

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08610452043M

2004-2020/03/05/21:38:00

This paper is based on original research in two Belgrade elementary schools the subjects were boys and girls from senior grades. These boys and girls were asked to answer a few questions about their future professions; that is, how do they imagine their lives in the future. More than half of the questioned girls expressed the desire to become models, actresses, singers or to be involved in some similar occupations from the world of entertainment. Their dreams about their future life totally exclude professions that require hard studying and serious academic preparation. The girls showed no interest in so-called "serious" occupations or, as a matter of fact, in traditional female jobs and roles. Boys, on the other hand, have various and diverse plans and dreams concerning their future occupations. In brief, the girls put emphasis on professions where the body and its appearance count, while the boys emphasize everything else. This paper is an attempt to answer the question of why it is that the majority of girls on the doorstep of adolescence see the fulfillment of their dreams in such a stereotyped, narrow frame of glamour and physical attractiveness. The paper points out to the existence of pop-culture patterns that so greatly influence the daily lives of these young girls, through media, school and public life in general. In such pop-culture that broadcasts a "Cover Girl" image, images that could encourage girls' other ambitions and interests almost do not exist.

school, future, beauty, adolescence, ambition, girls