Girls can wrestle too: Gender differences in the consumption of a television wrestling series

Gender differences associated with viewing, modeling and talking about a particular television wrestling series (WWF) were studied in elementary-schools in Israel. Discussion is based on an analysis of 901 completed questionnaires and 254 personal interviews with Jewish children of various socio-economical backgrounds and geographical locations. Survey and interview evidence suggested that the majority of the girls were less interested in viewing WWF than boys, and hardly ever joined in the fights at school. For most girls, opposing WWF served to reinforce their gender identity and to separate them from the world of violence and force. For other girls, WWF provided an opportunity to explore the masculine body and occasionally to safely explore male not-ms OS behavior: As a whole, girl's in this study appreciated violence less and were much more critical of it than boys.