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Gender Roles, Socialization and Relationships Essay examples

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Watch the classical film Grease and one will understand how relationships function in western Society. The film tells a story of a boy (Danny) and a girl (Sandy) who falls in love. Through a series of misunderstandings they break up, but still care enough about each other that they still try revive their relationship. Through ballads such as Summer Night’s that are still popular today, the film shows how differently males and females view relationships. Danny, for example, describes his relationship in more physical terms while Sandy describes her relationship in much more emotional terms –such as what they did that night. Films like Grease are like a mirror, reflecting societal values and how it socializes its members. It makes clear …show more content…

Males were more likely to score higher on tests that scale romanticism and are more prone to recognize their romantic feelings much earlier than females (Kanin et al. 64). Since males tend to recognize the love feeling earlier, for males to be determined as “more romantic,” the definition must be based on the speed of the recognition of the romantic feeling (Kanin et al. 71). Look no further then evolutionary history for an explanation of this. The ultimate goal of animals is to reproduce their species. The constraints on their reproductive capability have a profound effect on their approach to relationships. Males have large reproductive capacity. He simply must produce sperm cells and go through with the act of copulation (Gray 79). This causes his reproductive capability to be limited by the number of females he mates with and thus he tries to maximize his copulation attempts (Contrary to popular belief, humans are not a monogamous species but a largely monogamous and partly polgynous species) (Gray 79; 83). Furthermore, males have much less parental investment, which, if Trivers’ theory is to be believed, would result in him being competitive for mates –resulting in him being the more aggressive sex (Gray 79). Since males must play the aggressor role in relationships, he must be more responsive and attracted to physical stimuli (Kanin et al. 71). This requires him to recognize his romantic feelings much more quickly then females.

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