Preview

Gender Roles In Bre Van De Kamp's The Real Housewife

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1667 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Gender Roles In Bre Van De Kamp's The Real Housewife
Desperate Housewives In many television shows, the role of a character can cause the character to be portrayed a stereotypical way that promotes gender roles and what is expected from someone based off of gender. The television series The Real Housewives is based off of rich, beautiful women who put their everyday lives on television. Being a reality show, these women show the world how luxurious and easy it is to be a housewife. Parties, friends, family and drama, these women live a life that every working woman wishes they could have. The image these housewives portray, make the role of a housewife look like a piece of cake. Their life is a party and everything is handed to them by their hard working husbands. However, in the television …show more content…
Her house is spotless, her hair is always in place, and her family is picture perfect. She is very active in her church and is always willing to help out others in order to better her reputation. Bre is known for her amazing cooking and her ability to be a leader. Everyone loves Bre and knows she is capable of doing anything. From baking perfect pies for new neighbors, lending money to those in need and having a successful cookbook, Bre seems to have it all. Her image is flawless and she is the definition of perfection, but to Bre, there is more hidden behind the fame of her picture perfect life. Bre’s greatest strength is hiding the imperfect things in her life. Inside her beautiful victorian home, she struggles to keep her cheating husband content and from walking out. Her 1940’s wardrobe and perfect hair hides her homosexual son and his hatred towards her. The baking and successful cookbook pays for her rebellious daughters careless mistakes and reputation. Her church attendance covers up her strong, personal relationship with alcohol. Bre’s role in the show is a character that relates to those who battle to save their marriage, struggle to keep their kids in line and those who fight to try and keep their life in one piece. In the end, Bre’s character found happiness in her “perfect” life. She cared less about her image and more about what she could do to better for her family and life. The role of Bre’s character speaks to those women who try too hard to meet certain requirements to have a perfect

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Best Essays

    Research Paper Final Draft

    • 1562 Words
    • 3 Pages

    housewives. The role of women has changed over time, especially in the areas of work, sports and…

    • 1562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jean Kilbourne and bell hooks agree in their writings that the media often distorts what we perceive as reality in one way or another. Film, television, and advertising shape our ideals and what we believe should be true. Kilbourne focuses on the distortion of gender, particularly the distortion of the female gender in society in the excerpt from her book included in From Inquiry to Academic Writing, whereas hooks analyzes the misrepresentation of the impoverished and homeless in the excerpt from her book. Despite their differing foci, both authors would likely agree that the TV show Dance Moms is a prime example of the underlying themes of gender and class distortions that the media commonly portrays.…

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    She then references many popular and well respected media outlets that have stories that relate to her argument. She ends the piece with more personal accounts from women – including a personal account of her own. The structure of this piece begins with acceptable – almost scientific in tone facts and statistics. Then come more stories and commentaries about the plight of the American housewife as seen by the American media. She uses well respected sources to give society's perspective on the issue. Lastly she uses emotionally appealing personal testimonies – from housewives themselves – giving the end of her paper an especially emotional and visceral feeling that the reader is left with. The structure of her writing is very effective in adding a sense of seriousness and legitimacy- It eases the reader into the argument as it becomes increasingly focused and…

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The House on Mango street is a feminist piece of literature because it brings attentions to the sexist way the men in Esperanza’s society regard women. Esperanza tells her story by focusing on the women around her who are owned by the dominant men in their lives due to restricting gender roles that encompasses not only women but men. “My great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off...She (Esperanza’s grandmother) looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.” (11) Cisneros brings attention to the cruel way that men in Esperanza’s society treat women. The normality of these discriminatory actions describes a gender role that society has set for men, to be the dominant figure in…

    • 273 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza, from The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, has a twofold revelation as she conquers her fears of ending up in her community’s cycle of poverty and conforming to gender roles, then decides to help the women who cannot leave their unfortunate situations. Once Esperanza moves into her house on Mango Street with her family, she begins observing the various women who reside there. Though they are all different in their own ways, they share the same aspect: they live in poverty with a male figure, either a father or husband, who treats them poorly and suppresses their potential. Even the young girls are subject to playing the part of the woman’s role. One girl, Alicia, has “inherited her mama’s rolling pin and sleepiness…waking…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On January 24 2011 I attended the Presentation given by Jennifer Pozner. This presentation was called “Project Brainwash: Why reality TV is bad for women”. Project Brainwash focuses on how reality TV shows are maintaining stereotypes that society has created for women. Although many of us believe reality TV is just mindless fun, Pozner points out that many of the shows are portraying women badly and making them conform to society’s beliefs of what a woman should be like.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For example: Although the media depict most women as housewives and stay-at-home mothers, in reality many women work full time and put their children in daycare.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stereotypes are a common issue in today’s society. In society women are expected to work in the kitchen and cook for their husband and also do housework. Men are expected to repair things around the house, or sit back and relax while…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The struggle to control oneself can be very challenging for some; it can become a battle within yourself. Over time one learns how to have control for themselves, but still some struggle with not being able to control the world around them. One will first have to start by controlling their needs and wants. Can the battle of controlling different desires be worse from what others want or from what an individual wants? Women have fought for their rights to control their decisions as early as 1789-when the Declaration of Man and Citizen was published.…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The family that most of us think of when we say “average American family” is the Dunphy family, which consists of parents Phil and Claire and their three kids Haley, Alex, and Luke. Claire’s character in the show is stemmed from the stereotypical housewife that the media has placed upon women in general along side women in relationships. This stereotype stages women as weaker and subordinate to men, because the women do not financially provide for the family it automatically gives the men power over the household. Claire’s identity is made up of these types of characteristics such as motherhood, family orientation and domesticity. We also see instances where the gender stereotype actually switched sides. For instance, in the episode “Phil’s New Car,” Phil’s task for the day is find and purchase a new vehicle for the family per Claire’s instructions. Even in the first few moments the show is…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Hunting Ground

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Gender roles are constantly changing, but there is not enough progress in the gender identity chosen by society for women. A woman being depicted in the media as weak or lesser than a man is not tolerable. Just because these femininity performances have been repeated for so long in history does not make it natural that women should act and be represented in that way. (Alberts, 2007) It is the twenty-first century and women should be considered strong, independent and equal to men. This is still not the case as women are often also over sexualized in the media, which causes real world…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gender stereotypes need to be stomped out and vanish. Everyone is who they are for a reason, and that’s because no one else is like you. But today, everyone goes with what’s in through the media. Being thin, having a lot of makeup caked on and doing your hair all the time, and men be super manly on tv/commercials. Cooking, beauty, and masculinity are three of most likely hundreds of more stereotypes that have been addressed in not just my paper, but…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Inequality In America

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Due to the gender roles provided by society from birth, women are taught to behave and act a certain way within the house. They are thought of as child bearers, cooks, caregivers, and the person who is responsible for other chores around the house; Arlie Hochschild calls this effect the second shift (Conley 469). Due to this effect on society, women may be seen as less expected to work full-time, when in fact, only 3 percent of women managers said that family responsibilities were a main obstacle in their career (Empowering Women). With women being placed into a set category and role, this causes men to see them as weak and unable to work full-time. This barrier could be broken by a more forward way of thinking towards women’s roles in society. There are plenty of women who do not fit the role of housewife, and by placing them into this role, they are being unrightfully judged. With a more forward way of thinking, this issue of set role can be solved within the work…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In television, the report found that the percentage of female TV characters has fallen, and the characters that make it on-screen are far less likely to be leaders than their male counterparts. According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film’s “Boxed In” report, CW is the only TV network where women can be seen in accurate proportion to their representation in the U.S. population. The authors of “Boxed In” conclude that “female characters are still sidelined, stereotyped, and sexualized in popular entertainment content.”…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    On September 20, 1984 a show aired that changed the way we view gender roles on television. Television still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes and in reflecting them TV reinforces them by presenting them as the norm (Chandler, 1). The Cosby Show, challenged the typical gender stereotyping of television, daring to go against the dominant social values of its time period. In its challenge of the dominant social view, the show redefined the portrayal of male and female roles in television. It redefined the gender role in the work place, in social expectations, and in household responsibilities. The Cosby Show supported Freidan in her view of "castigating the phony happy housewife heroine of the women's magazines" (Douglas 136).…

    • 1557 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics