Gender through Their Lenses: A Film of Students' Images

Abstract

Introduction A photo essay was the main project assigned to students in a Sociology of Gender course. The research question answered upon completion of this project was, "Does a film created from students' photographs facilitate understanding of gender messages in their everyday lives?" Students were required to submit a minimum of five photographs of gender in everyday life (Boyle, 1995). First, the students chose specific topics related to the course and then were given four weeks to obtain photographs pertaining to those topics. After they submitted their photos, the images were organized within the different topics and a video was compiled. The effectiveness of this assignment and video were assessed through an on-line survey. The objective of the film compilation of photos was to demonstrate students' abilities to identify relevant and interesting images related to gender in their own lives. While a few obstacles were encountered as the project progressed, and such issues were easily resolved, the film resulting from the assignment demonstrated that students were able to see gender in their everyday lives. Background: Visualizing Gender in Everyday Life According to Bem (1993), cultural beliefs about gender are reinforced in society through our institutions. Meta-messages that women and men are polar opposites--that gender differences are biologically determined and essential and that men are superior or at least the norm to which women are compared and considered inferior--are so pervasive we often do not even realize they are there. She likens the fact that we are immersed and oblivious to gender expectations to the fish that is unaware that it is wet. This assignment was meant to open students' eyes to those meta-messages about gender in their own lives. The assumption was that the students' lived experiences exposed them to visual examples of the sociological concepts discussed in their gender course (Hoop, 2009). Considering that students' lives have become more visually expressive, through television, film, advertising, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media, the ability to critically analyze visual information has become more important. For example, Howkins (2010) explains that images in print advertising reconstruct values about gender, as well as race, class, religion, and more, in a ritualistic way that portray certain statuses with privilege without the observer realizing it, just by what is centered or placed on the right side of the image or through use of a model's gaze (pp. 5859). She argues that it has become even more critical for students to understand the decisionmaking process of those who produce the images around them, and how those images influence their perspectives on their social world (Howkins, 2010, p. 61). Images from advertising on billboards, in shop windows and on signs around the university campus express values about gender. For the project evaluated in this article, students were required to photograph those images around them and on campus and other examples of how gender was depicted and were asked to analyze what they captured in their snapshots. Konecki (2009) contends that photographed images can provide an abundant amount of information that can be linked to theoretical categories. From his experience of teaching grounded theory and qualitative methods, he found that photography and visual analyses helped students link their personal experiences with analytical themes (Konecki, 2009, p. 66). However, teaching students how to use visual analysis is challenging, especially in a class of students with diverse experiences using qualitative research methods. As ten Have (2003) explains, very specific instructions need to be provided on how to acquire legal, consensual photographs, and then the analyses have to be broken down into steps in which students are asked specific questions about their photographs that make them apply the theoretical categories. …