In this episode of Grey’s Anatomy, the parents of Christina Yang’s boyfriend, Preston Burke, come to visit him as he recovers from a hand surgery. Christina has to deal with criticisms from Preston’s mother.
In the beginning of the episode, Christina comes into Preston’s hospital room and undresses and climbs onto his bed. In this scene, she is showing stereo-typically masculine traits by being confident and assertive. Later, when conversing with Preston’s mother, she is told that she should choose an less time consuming specialty, so can spend more time at home. Preston’s mother also says that she is selfish and not compassionate. After this, while ranting to her friend Meredith, Christina again shows confidence and assertiveness by insisting that she made the right choice to go into surgery, and that she does not need to be a stereo-typical house wife. In the end of the episode, Christina shows the feminine trait of compassion by checking on Burke and his parents before she heads home. In this episode, Christina breaks gender stereotypes by showing that women can be assertive and confident. She also shows that they can be ambitious and career focused. Finally, she also shows that women who are career focused are still compassionate people.
In class, I learned about identity and how it relates to gender and media. Social identity is how one defines themselves regarding what other people’s expectations are. In this episode, Christina shows that you can identify as a successful woman but still focus on your career as opposed to focusing on domestic life.
Shared by: Claire Olson
Image Credit: https://screenrant.com/greys-anatomy-cristina-yang-quotes-tv-show/