Gender Development in Adolescence

A new book I found in the stacks explained to me why gender was so significant during adolescence and highlighted how females are portrayed on TV. Adolescence is that uneasy, expect-the-unexpected time when we go through various changes: biological, cognitive, social, and emotional. On top of that, it is a time that researchers say we feel extra pressured to "conform to traditional gender roles" because our gender awareness is increasing. With all those changes going on, where do teens look to learn how to "be" a woman or a man? The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media since 1950 presents the media as a significant source of gender socialization. TV shows and commercials (in the past 20 years) subtly give us samples of how a conventional female behaves: more often than males, she is concerned with beauty, romance, and household chores; more often than males, she is seen crying, whining, or making threats. This is interesting because although we live in a society that attempts to equate men and women, there are still residual conventions of femininity. Why are these stereotypes still here? Is it even possible to get rid of these traditional images of women? Perhaps we cannot expect stereotypes to ever disappear because gender is rooted in our biology -- it is something society cannot alter.