Why should we pay attention to or worry about gender roles and the dynamics that stem from them when we are constantly being bombarded with serious and pressing issues afflicting our society i.e. the political, environmental, electoral, domestic, international, etc. etc.?
Because many of the headaches we grapple with everyday stem from these gendered norms and our collective adherence to them, and they will continue to creep up into our lives, our research, our media, our paychecks, our opportunities if we don’t recognize just how pervasive and consistent they are.
You might question this and argue that we are above and beyond the confines of “gender norms”. You might say something along the lines of, “Yes, I imagine there is some work to be done, but look at how far we’ve come! What else could or should we possibly do? - sign another Change.org petition, share another graph about the wage gap? Aren’t we already doing great work? Just look at the way we raise our children! They choose toys and costumes without the pressure of gender conformity. We pressure toy distributers to follow suite. California recently added a non-binary choice to birth certificates. Women are exposing powerful men’s sexual misconduct and violence in the workplace like never before. And in contrast to the belief that women could do no wrong, we can look to disgraced Aun San Suu Kyi of Myanmar who has lost some honors and recognitions in the midst of a genocidal crisis.
Yes, these are all true!
In many shops, there seems to be an obvious separation between boys and girls items, for example, the birthday cards, books, clothes, and toys. This is shown in a variety of ways the boy's items are mainly the color blue and the books have pictures of either action figures, superheroes or tools. Whereas the girl's items are mainly the color pink. The books show pictures of fairies, princess, and Bratz. The cards also have the theme of the color pink for girls and blue for boys. The girl's cards have a lot of sparkles and pretty pictures whereas the boy's cards are covered in camo kind of illustrations and also have action figures on the covers. The children's clothes are separated into sections where there are labels for the boy's clothes and labels for the girl's clothes. The girl's clothing is all pretty and pink, it is covered in sparkles. Whereas boys clothing has camo patterns, blue colors, and pictures of action figures.
In present day all around the world, society has certain expectations for the actions and behaviors of males and females. There are many factors in our everyday lives that contribute to the gender norms that society has set. This essay will discuss how situations in life can play a part in how people treat other people based on their gender. It is believed that males are the leaders of our world, but in present day woman can do as much as men can do. From The Journal of Marriage and Family, Hu states, “Differentiated gender roles in adulthood are rooted in one’s gender role socialization. In order to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the domestic sphere, we need to examine the gendered patterns of children’s housework time.”(2015, P.1). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females that they must be taught. These roles define how females and males are viewed in society, their household, and workplace. In The Journal of Sports behavior by Hardin, he states, “Although gender role differences from biological and “Natural” exists in popular consciousness, research has long demonstrated that instead, many are long time socially constructed… Individuals understand their gender because they are given names and treated in particular ways, such as dress in pink for girls and blue for boys, that reflect social construction of gender. Bandura's social cognitive theory is key in understanding the factors in socialization”(2009, P.3). Bandura's theory of of social cognition is that behavior, environmental events, and cognitive factors are the main keys that shape attitudes and actions of an individual. Although, gender roles play a very big part in our society, specific genders are treated differently while dealing with peer influence, media influence, as well as employment.
Women all around the world as we speak are being distinguished by their gender, but why has this become a much bigger issue in our present lives today? Morals play a big role in the actions of these events. People are so used to the men working while the women stay home and clean or cook. Some women want to study, become educated, or simply just provide for themselves. This is an important example because why are we still letting our gender define who we
Men collectively choose to receive psychological help less than their women counterparts. The sex distinction in help-seeking behavior occurs even when both women and men are equally afflicted. If male help-seeking behavior is to be increased, the reason for its neglect must be considered. Increasing our awareness of factors that may deter men from exploring psychological guidance may help in accessing reluctant men, allowing them to see past their preconceived ideology of masculinity.
Gender socialization often begins early once parents are shown the sex of their child; from then on, baby showers are planned according to gender “appropriate” colors, which are often pink for girls and blue for boys. Even differences in how children are spoke to can be picked up easily in Western cultures. Girls are called pretty and sweet, whereas boys are handsome and strong. Ultimately, the way children learn to identify with their gender culture is in part due to not only family and friends, media, schools, and religion, but also from the toys that may inexplicitly advertise gender expectations. Gender-typed toys may be bought for children as a way for parents to encourage and reinforce gender-appropriate behaviors. However, recent debates have engulfed toy manufacturers and major retailers, which has brought about changes in toy design and marketing in an effort to make reflect more realistic and gender neutral options.
Society has institutionalized gender roles since the beginning of time, a common one is that women are the nurturers and housekeepers, while men are the breadwinners of household. In spite of centuries, and fighting for women 's rights, such as the right to vote in the late 1920s. Women still have roles to fulfill, even in a modern society that is dominated by a virtual world. Gender identification has multiplied from that of men and women, to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ).. Nonetheless, we still have particular roles even for women in gay virtual communities. Education and gender are significant in dictating the participation as well as limitations of women in social media. They demonstrate that gender roles are persistent even in social media, but most importantly, that women are the primary object of societal values.
From a young age, people are told who they must be and how they must act determined by their gender. Gender roles are a set of societal norms that dictate a person’s behavior based on the appropriate and acceptable rules for their gender. This notion derives from the assumption that girls favor dolls and dress-up, while boys prefer toy guns and trucks. These instances contribute to the concept that those of male and female gender must fulfill a specific ideology. These societal standards are ingrained within us as children and we are taught to become exceedingly aware of them. Girls are trained to become vessels of unstable emotions with an excess amount of vulnerability and sensitivity. Females must be the picturesque embodiment of
Society sees men and women playing their own role. We expect a woman to do things like cook, clean, and do laundry while we expect the men to work all day and earn the money that we as women spend. We are born with a specific gender, as we get older we start to
Using the interview between the group and Iveta, who is from Croatia, I was able to prove as well as disprove the research that was conducted regarding gender roles in the Croatian culture.
In regards to this, the reason why I chose Mead’s work Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World as one of my anthropological research is because of the moral of this work– to create a good and equal society–and its ability to “take account of these fundamentals in assigning roles to its men and women, while at the same time permitting sufficient freedom of choice to allow full expression of the abilities of both sexes. Having taken this stand we are surprised to find the author in sudden retreat, in an attempt to escape from what she fears may be too much freedom for women, threatening both their men and their femininity” (Seward 1950, 281). Hence, no one should feel subjugated to one gender or gender roles because of biological
Gender roles are born through social construct rather than given biologically. Language in male and female roles have been substantially focused on “how the system is put to use in practice” (Bucholtz 1999: Page 80). If a person studied the differences of feminism and masculinity, the differences will outstand each other, because women are expected to act and speak in a specific way, as well as men. An insight of the differentiation of men and women would be “women may use “men’s” forms to index authority or casualness, and men may use “women’s” forms to index affection or diffidence” (Bucholtz 1999: Page 81). The ideologies that have been embedded in what it means or what it takes to be a “man” or a “woman” have been altered through
When it comes to gender, many people have different views and experiences. Men and women have different expectations put upon their lives. These expectations are common even within the family and on the job. While some gain advantages others do not. Men gain the advantages when it comes to work and education. They are expected to be the primary breadwinner in their families. Nonetheless, not every man has the same attitudes towards gender. While we have the same structure of gender at work and in the family, men do have different attitudes and opinions than before.
For as long as time can remember, a form of entertainment has existed. As times advance, a new and improved mode of entertainment is born. Entertainment and the media has been used and abused over the last century by the many hungry viewers. Medias have not prevailed for the mass amount of time that entertainment has, but the lasting impact the media created has been both positive and negative. However, the negative outshines the positive; media representations of gender and gender roles have a negative effect on men and women.
Imagine a world that's been evolved enough to forget traditional gender roles. A world where people break from the molds and liberate themselves. That would be progressive and productive. That is the kind of world that the future of our people should strive for. Maybe there was a time that the human race needed these roles to establish themselves, but now the times have changed. One by one, the stigmas are breaking. Despite this, some molds are harder to break and need a little more cracking to release the people from that specific roles. There are many categories of which gender and culture can be dissected and redirected to a more progressive outlook. (may have to take that out) To go into specifics, traditional gender roles in the United States are inhibiting the progression of equal wages, social expectations, and self-acceptance.
We’ve grown up in a society where gender has always been an issue, and quite possibly always will be. Unless we start to entirely alter our thoughts and begin to view gender for what it is and not what it’s been portrayed to be for many years there will not be any change.