Genders are socially constructed
The cartoonist Liz Donnelly draws this cartoon to reflect her idea that genders are socially constructed. Liz uses color to present how hospital staff differentiates babies according to their sex with blue and pink. This evokes her intended audience of the public to come to the realization that gender stereotyping and expectations are placed onto children from a very young age. This can be seen from her cartoon where male infants are dressed in different colored caps and sleep in different colored beds as the females. The males are dressed in blue whereas the females are dressed in pink, which is a social stereotype as girls are imagined to like pink and boys to like blue. Furthermore, the males and females are separated into two sides of the room, which represents how genders are thought of as being distinctly different from the moment of birth. Because of the hospital’s symbolic role representing “society” in this cartoon, the different colors, and placements of the babies showed how genders are socially constructed.
Gender stereotyping and expectations are a wide-spread problem
Liz Donnelly shows gender stereotyping and expectations are a wide-spread problem by drawing the infants to be having different skin tones. This reflects on her message to the audience that this social issue of gender stereotyping impacts all races, and is, therefore, a serious problem that needs consideration. The primary intended audience of this cartoon is the public because the issues of gender stereotyping and expectations are very prevalent, so she hopes to raise public awareness about it. Furthermore, her secondary audience could be people who have influence over children at a young age, so that they can reflect on what they have done wrong by imposing gender stereotypes on infants.
Shows how all the infants are the same initially and gender roles and identities are socially constructed.
Last but not least, Liz Donnelly uses the structure of the foreground and background to convey the message that all children, no matter their sex, are born the same. The facial impressions and the arrangement of the formula bottles at the back of the room show her belief that all children are born the same. Since all children eat and have the same physiological functions, they should be treated the same way, instead of being forced into complying with social expectations and stereotypes of their gender identities. By contrasting the similarities in the background with the deliberate segregation of the male and female infants in the foreground, Donnelly wishes to highlight that the gender roles and identities we see today are socially constructed.
