Gender And Gender Roles In The Traditional Family

During the 1950's, there was a lifestyle in America that was essentially set in stone from birth. Television portrayed an image that women were to stay to home with the children. Shows such as, Leave it to Beaver, and Father Knows Best displayed a stereotypical way of life and structure in a family. “The sitcoms were simultaneously advertisements, etiquette manuals, and how-to lessons for a new way of organizing marriage and child rising” (Coontz, 39). Although television shows of the 1950's were not true reality, it seemed to be a good model at the time. Family life in the 50's era differs greatly from today's family unit.

Television sitcoms of the 1950’s through the 1990’s demonstrated the values and structure of the American family by portraying stereotypes. Since television sets became mainstream and entered almost every American home, the content of American sitcoms has reflected the culture of the times. Thus, as the popular American sitcoms of the 1950’s suggest, families living in the 1950’s were very tightly grouped and did everything together with the roles of males and females clearly defined. In the 1950’s, women did the house cleaning and child care and men worked, providing for the family. In the sixties, women acquired more freedom in their lives. The 1963 Equal Pay Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act came into effect. It was the end of the baby

During the time of the 80s, there were many television shows that portrayed traditional families. A traditional family, which is two married parents of the opposite gender and their child or children. Even though, Full house doesn’t necessary mirror the traditional family values that all society knows, it’s one of the shows that helped break gender stereotypes. For example, the whole family tradition “norm” was that women would be the caregivers and men would provide for their family. In Bittney Davis article, “Recognizing Gender Roles in Nostalgic TV Series Full House” she mentions, “The expectation of a male’s purpose in the household is to provide for and

Television sitcoms of the 1950’s through the 1990’s demonstrated the values and structure of the American family by portraying stereotypes. Since television sets became mainstream and entered almost every American home, the content of American sitcoms has reflected the culture of the times. Thus, as the popular American sitcoms of the 1950’s suggest, families living in the 1950’s were very tightly grouped and did everything together with roles of males and females clearly defined. In the 1950,’s women did the housecleaning and child care and men worked, providing for the family. In the sixties, women acquired more freedom in their lives. The 1963 Equal Pay Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act came into effect. It was the end of the baby boomer

Gender Role Analysis on the Television Show Modern Family Ever since TVs where invented, families all around the world were fascinated by such a magnificent form of entertainment. From the news to a comedy series. From young toddlers to grandparents watching. It was so revolutionary and such an amazing invention that it has become a part of everyone’s everyday life. Unfortunately, it does have a downside.

The job that most women are pressured to have is motherhood. Only recently has it became socially acceptable for husbands to stay home and take care of the children. Due to the fact that women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of men like work, school, and politics, they have been pigeonholed into the stay at home category. In fact, according to Beauvoir “a man would feel that he was lowering himself by helping with tasks hitherto assigned to women” (Beauvoir). Contemporary Women’s Issues Database is active in educating the world on gender inequality. They believe that, “gender feminists believe that the husband-wife relationship is inherently oppressive to women and that the traditional family propagates this ‘oppression’… gender feminists envision a brave new world in which reproduction is socially-constructed, rather than biologically-determined” (Contemporary Women’s Issues Database). Women have broken that hold in the last five years and are pushing forward. There are still gains that need to be made, but the world is in that

I personally liked the article for this particular discussion, because it portrays the same way gender roles are developed and played out in American families. However, it is sort of the opposite of how Katniss lives her life in District 12. Essentially, American families will have a male head of house hold with a wife and a couple of children. Therefore, the man will conduct the heavy lifting and the woman is usually taking care of the house work. Furthermore, the gender roles of our society can correlate with how Katniss lives if the man dies and the woman has to take on the role of head of house. She would have to learn to do the heavy lifting so to speak. Katniss learned to hunt and protect her family because their was not a man to fulfill

According to “The Role of the father:Past, Present, and the Future” , “Industrialization in the 19th century changed the father's role, however. ‘The new economic structure separated the home and the work place, which led to a new fatherly ideal,’ said Morantz-Sanchez. ‘The men became the breadwinners, and the women stayed at home. This took childrearing out of the traditional male role.’” However from this stereotypical role, “ ‘The role of the father has changed again in this past century, as economic demands have pulled the mother into the workplace.’ According to Morantz-Sanchez, the family is moving towards a more democratic partnership, a move that took place largely in the last third of the 20th century. ‘A lot of this was stimulated by the feminist movement, which critiqued the absentee father and the obligations of the breadwinner for overburdening both the mother and the father.’” Motherhood today still follows the same ideals but with a lesser focus on domesticity.

Gender and familial roles are one of the common themes that films of all time employ. Some films challenge the patriarchy and traditional gender roles while others confirm to the stereotyped roles. Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (2014) is a Swedish comedy-drama film that won numerous awards including the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at 2014 Cannes Film Festival. It portrays the issue of socially constructed gender and familial roles through its in a different way from the common patriarchal ideologies in mainstream Hollywood cinema. . These familial and gender roles are strongly associated with each other because they are both preserved by children’s acquirement of behaviors from their same-sex parent. Thus, Force Majeure stresses the importance of gender equality by rejecting our unconscious expectations of how each member of a family should be and further our society’s anticipations.

As we all know the term nuclear family is defined as a husband, wife and their two children. However in recent decades we see through many television shows such as Modern Family breaking this ideal hegemonic family structure. The show Modern Family presents its audience a very live action of dysfunctional families, that contains gay parents as promoting a new sense of family value. Although this show attempts to portray a contemporary view of American families, it still emphasizes stereotype of gender roles, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. Throughout this essay I will analyze mainly on gender criticism of the Show Modern Family, while touching base of some stereotypes I noticed on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

In this paper I will discuss gender role and its impact on inequality. I will discuss gender inequality and its impact on creating as well demolishing families. I will mention different family structures and how gender roles have changed throughout time. I will explain how feminism has given opportunities to women and in effect transformed the family structure.

“The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That 's why he had called him a woman”(26). In “Things fall apart” by Chinua Achebe, structured gender roles play a significant role in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo 's violences and anger take these stereotypes to an extreme, damaging his relationships with close relatives.

Gender ideologies play a big role in families and has evolved drastically over time. Parents haven’t had the same equal positions in the family or followed the assumptions based on society’s view. Societies have always had traditional ways of life, such as, women as the nurtures and men as the money makers. As the years go by people change their ways of life, the idea of family has shifted. Many new roles are now more accepted in today’s time. Families are what makes us who we are and what we do. I grew up in a very happy household with parents who believed a family is the most important aspect in someone’s life. With that idea in mind and my Asian background shaped my parent’s beliefs about divorce, which they were always against. They believed that they chose each other for a reason and believed that they can overcome any struggles. In 1995, my parents, Billy and Vivian, married and had their first daughter in 1997 named Marilyn. After a year they had their most awesome second daughter which was me, and eventually they had their last child named Steve in 2001. Growing up, my mom stayed at home to take care of her three kids whereas my dad mostly worked. My father worked at a company restaurant and later my mom began her career as a nail technician.

For decades, men were the breadwinners of the American family. They were responsible for taking care of the needs of their wife and children as well as making sure all the essential bills were paid. There was even a time where most women did not work and were stay at home moms. However, during the 1960s, there was a shift in the American family. According to Castelloe (2011), “the last 50 years have seen a rise in divorce, cohabitation rather than marriage, “blended” families of both gay and heterosexual design, and children born out of wedlock”. In 2010, there were more women employed than men (Castelloe 2011). This shift in roles has a tremendous effect on Erikson’s development theory and is caused by gender inequality in schools.

The Industrial Revolution completely transformed family life. In the 1970s, female social scientists, such as Meg Luxton, began to explore different concepts of family life. (Fox 2015, p. 205). Luton 's 1980 book ‘More Than a Labour of Love’ examines the gender inequalities women faced where men earned wages and women were expected to act as full-time unpaid domestic workers within the home. Therefore, as a byproduct of this Revolution, women became increasingly independent and career motivated. (Volarevic 2012, p. 223). Consequently, women were becoming less domestically oriented, and as a result, were disrupting the family structure. However, this caused major controversy, as many functionalists were dissatisfied with this change. When exploring the functionalist perspective, many analysts view the work of Talcott Parsons. Parsons argues that society establishes several institutions in which reflect a shared valued system. (Grimes 1988, p. 183). He claims that each institution conduct functional tasks in order to sustain social order. Therefore, when change was brought about, many perceived moral chaos. Feminist sociologists combatted this argument by declaring that the ideology of the traditional family structure was of disadvantage to women. (Hare-Mustin 1978, p. 1). They argued that functionalists overlook the inequalities women face in