Popular Culture and Gender Identification

In the United States and throughout the world the popular culture has both reflected and created the identity of the individual and that larger population. One of the most important aspects of a person's identity is their gender. This is a socially constructed label that is applied to someone, most often based upon their physical sex. However, there are many cases wherein a person's gender identification is different than their physical sex which makes them "other" in the community and makes them the easy target of emotional and sometimes physical abuse. Popular culture is an important part of the structure of identity and this can include gender identification. In such television programs as How I Met Your Mother and South Park the ways in which characters illustrate their own gender identification and the value that they have in society based upon the strength of that...
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