‘A kind of banalisation has occurred: we are now offered an instant, ready-to-mix fame as nutritious as packet soup’. (JG Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition)

The present age is a simulation of Ballard’s world, where we are palpably aware of the displacement of so many values; namely love, duty, and integrity. In this “hyper-simulated” world we live amid growing concern over the legacy we will leave our children.

The value of such ideals and their affect on the younger generation are explored in BBC1’s Child of Our Time series, which aims to document the lives of 25 British children until they reach 20 years of age. In The Divide of the Sexes (the first episode of series eight), the children (now eight) undergo a series of simple challenges designed to assess gender roles and the affect on values like wealth, love, and happiness.

The study reveals that all the boys, bar one, value being ‘rich’ above fame, health, and kindness, whilst the girls, as well as one of the boys, favour the latter two qualities. Perhaps it is no wonder that the boy that finds value in health and kindness – who is unafraid to express his sensitive side throughout the programme - has four girlfriends (‘I used to have twelve’, he beams incredulously).

The exaltation of health and prosperity may not seem odd for a generation exposed to adult sexuality, celebrity fame, and extreme dieting. Yet it is not unremarkable that these values are in keeping with those of male-female paradigms in post-war Britain, which marked the disruption of domestic bliss, and when controversy surrounding smoking and lung cancer meant that matters of health reached a heightened significance.

In spite of contemporary parodies of the ‘50s ‘housewife’, the 1950s marked the beginning of social revolution with women entering the workforce in record numbers, marking their liberation from domestic drudgery. Yet in the current social sphere, with parents now striving for equality, children are choosing external role models - namely celebrities.

The girls have unhealthy aspirations towards thinness, drawing a direct correlation between being ‘fat’ and being unhappy, the general consensus being that the bigger the girl, the fewer friends she will have. One girl even goes so far as to deem fat girls ‘nasty’, while the boys, who also associate size with predominance, favour the larger dominant role, with one of the boys declaring outright that he wants to be fat, so he can ‘push people over’.

Here, as in the binary male-female, subjective-objective paradigm, the girls fear the dominant ‘other’, whereas the boys constitute it or are empowered by it. These gender ‘differences’ merely serve to reinforce gender stereotypes, and normalise male and female ideals that have always been in place.

For women, appearances have always required the signature of cultural approval; for these children, the way they look is no different. When given the task of picking an outfit from a selection of clothes, the girls opt for bright pink figure-hugging outfits, reminiscent of their pop star role-models.

These girls know that looking good is a recipe for female success, a landmark of opportunity, and directly relate the success of their female role-models to their appearances. One girl stands out – a self-professed ‘tomboy’ - preferring not to ‘waste time thinking about what to wear in the morning’. But this concern is not just something the other girls are concerned about. The boys, who all opt for hoody, baggy trousers, and a baseball hat cocked to one side, are similarly concerned with their appearance. However, unlike the girls, whose choice of clothes emulate the sex-encoded ‘heels and lycra’ look that adorns their idols, the boys dress to appear confidant, and are less concerned with their appearances to attract the opposite sex than for appearances sake.

In a world where boys label cleverness as ‘so boring’, fathers think it’s wrong for boys to play with dolls, and eight-year-old girls worry about staying slim, there is hope that we are moving towards a future where tears are becoming emotion-related, rather than constrained by gender.

Is the divide of the sexes growing?

Western culture is synonymous with the ‘banalisation of celebrity’, yet the search for identity, the desire to belong, and the need to feel wanted remain predominant factors: the transcendent quality of which belies our pessimism.

By Amanda Carey/MOLI