Sunday, December 2, 2012

Would you let your kid gender-bend for a day?


What Would You Do? is a series that acts out scenes in front of unsuspecting people to see how bystanders would react. Typically they deal with a whole series of social justice issues such as racism or poverty. I stumbled upon this video in which they have a little boy ask his mom if he could be Belle for Halloween because the male characters tend to be too violent and the mom refuses. It is interesting to see that most bystanders actually side with the mom. The bystanders also had a tendency to comment on the fact that you have got to intervene on these behaviors while they are young so that they don't become habits. It was a bit chilling, knowing what I know about gender to see regular people enforcing it in such a blatant manner. It was also interesting to see how the reactions subtly change when the role is reversed toward a girl who wants to be Spiderman.
If you have the spare 7 minutes, I think it is well worth it to watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6tW57bmkfY

No comments:

Post a Comment