Unit D Blog #24

I was able to meet with and discuss gender expectations and stereotypes with a law student in the masters program at ASU. His name is Matt and he agreed to answer some questions on the aforementioned subject. He told me that throughout his schooling in the justice and law programs up to this point he had noticed that in the media women and men in the field of law are portrayed completely differently and often in a biased manner. I asked him to explain further and he told me that when men are portrayed as "hard-nosed" prosecutors, they are seen in a positive light, like they are a community hero of sorts. He mentioned that when women are portrayed in the media as "hard-nosed" prosecutors they are given almost a "mean" and negative connotation. He accredited this to the medias role in showing women as always "motherly" and caring, and men in the society see women as someone who they can confide in,l or who will comfort them, so when women are out there doing there part in the world of criminal justice, it is seen as negative. I completely agreed with his point and also realized that in the hiring process often times women are viewed as "too soft" to put people behind bars, and often times this limits them from obtaining the positions that they would hope for. These biases and stereotypes are complimented by the modern media, and the same goes for people of lower income as well as often times minorities. The media has a certain way of portraying these groups in a way that makes the white male look higher above the rest. I believe that a change must be made on the "home-front" and that women need to be cleared of these biases that men and the media create.