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Gender Theory in the Big Bang Theory

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Submitted By katiemarie12
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Gender Theory role in The Big Bang Theory In today’s society, technology plays a major role in ones day to day life, especially television. Each television show has its own theme, plot, and setting, which appeals to a particular audience. A popular comedy sitcom, airing on CBS, is The Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory centers around two physicists, Leonard and Sheldon, that are roommates, and their neighbor, Penny. Leonard and Sheldon are extremely socially awkward, and so are their friends, Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali. The television show displays the interaction between these four geeky friends with Penny and other women. Throughout the show, the audience recognizes that many of society’s stereotypes on gender are portrayed through these characters. To thoroughly analyze gender stereotypes and its role in The Big Bang Theory, one must first understand what gender theory is, and its role it plays in society. Gender theory began as the Feminist movement, which was started around the late eighteenth century. The Feminist theory was a proponent of gender equality. Mary Wollstonecraft played a prominent role in this movement (Allen and Felluga). The Feminist movement originally started with women wanting rights with education; but women realized just how unfairly they were being treated. Now they wanted the right to own property, which would come with the right to vote. The movement then went from public to private; women wanted equal rights in home and work (Allen and Felluga). Media played a tremendous role into society accepting the fact that women were starting have more rights in society, which is known as social action. Men were speaking out that women were not just the ones stereotyped in society, with this came gender theory. Gender Theory deals with conflict due to social norms, which varies culture to culture . Social norms are

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