Gender Roles in European Culture

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

There were a few television shows that reinforce the traditional gender roles assigned to both men and woman. “I Love Lucy”, “The Jeffersons”, “Goodtimes”, “All in the Family”, “My Wife and Kids”, and “Fresh Prince of Bell Air” were all traditional gender role television shows. All of these shows had the men working and the women were taking care of everything at home. “The Jeffersons” were a little different than the rest because they had Florence there to do all of the housework and Mrs. Jefferson didn’t do much at all around the house unless she wanted to of course. Another show was “The Brady Bunch” this show was also different from the rest because although they had Alice there to help Ms. Brady because she had a lot of children,

In the world today, women have a say in what they want to do and things that they desire to do. Back in the day, before the 1800’s, women had to be submissive to their male counterparts and do according to what was required of them. In the end, this led to the demeaning of the woman and the concept that women were inferior to men. Even though this concept and perception changed, there have been some countries and regions of the world that have not yet recognized the equality that women deserve. Such areas do not allow women to vote, attend school, have a say in the community, and the women are at the mercy of their husbands, fathers or male superiors (Hartmann, Susan M).

Sociological imagination highlights how society places the two sexes in unequal positions of wealth, power and privilege. It is therefore very useful to look beyond the gender itself and see the global issues associated with it. There are differences regarding the type of gender in different countries, the levels of gender inequality and the amount of violence that are necessary to maintain both systems of difference and domination. Women were always viewed as weak, sensitive, dependent and unintelligent so the society formed a view that they have to sit home, do the housework and raise the children. They were always considered less skilled, incapable of doing a hard work and even now women are more likely to be paid less than man. Women are more likely to be abused and they are less likely to have access to formal power. According to the United Nations, “At least one in five of world’s female population has been physically or sexually abused by a man at some time in their life” (UNFPA, 2000: p. 25).

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.

Gender is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the state of being male or female. However after taking Psychology of Gender I would have to say I strongly disagree with this. I believe gender is a socio-cultural construct of female and male identity that shapes how individuals live and interpret the world around them. The older I get the more faults I find in my culture and the gender ideology behind it. Growing up Hispanic in the United States has made a huge impact in my life today, and while I believe it has benefitted me personally, research however seems to prove the opposite. Research today proves that even though these beliefs prove to be changing, the influence Hispanic culture has can negatively affect the way both men and women view their own gender roles and identity. Although research supports the idea of reinforcing negative stereotypes related to cultural gender roles. I also believe that these ideas are changing and will continue to evolve in the future.

Throughout the course of history, the roles of men and women have always been directed by gender. In American culture, the male stereotypic role has long been associated with authority, strength, aggression, competitiveness, and dominance. In contrast, female stereotypic roles have been associated with being loving, compassionate, nurturing, and sympathetic. Traditionally, men have worked outside the home and functioned as the sole breadwinner for the family. They held some of the most important jobs in society, such as military men, doctors, lawyers and politicians. Women, on the other hand, were long considered naturally weaker than men and incapable to perform work requiring muscular or intellectual ability. For this reason, throughout most of history, women generally had fewer legal rights and occupational opportunities than men. Motherhood and wifehood were considered a woman’s most important profession and they were expected to stay home and run the household sphere, while working to improve society by raising moral children. It wasn’t until the 20th century that women in America became more “equal” to men. Since then, they have progressed considerably in all aspects of public life – politics, occupation, education, etc. Despite women’s indisputable gains,

Equality, gender roles, and restrictions are important topics that many activists, leaders, and speakers have worked towards in order to provide to the world. The society we have now has been created in part by the determination and perseverance of their actions, speeches, and rallies. The world was a different place about 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and even more than 50 years ago. Associating women with household work and children, and men with difficult jobs and hard work, were can be observed throughout time that were previously set in past centuries. Both women and men have changed in associations, as we can currently observe in today’s society. Gender roles have switched, and new decrees have enabled individuals to have their equality

Gender inequality has been a dominant and consistent struggle of human culture since its existence. To this day, women constantly face oppression, unjust treatment, and less opportunities. For centuries, women have played inferior roles compared to men, especially in marriage. When a man and a woman would wed, it was understood that the woman would serve her husband’s needs and demands. Over the centuries of human existence, however, many feminists and progressive revolutionaries demanded change in the treatment of females.

Over the past decades, gender roles and family relations have changed, specifically in marriage and in family relations. Men and women now have equal rights, which means women can work at any job they would like, have a right to vote, and do not have to live under any rule of their family. Back in 1450-2000 circa people would live under very tight ruling where you either follow the rules or die.There were a few similarities as well as differences during this time in Western Europe and the Middle East.

De France infers that, in times when one may appear desperate others may offer to satisfy their desires, but remaining loyal to oneself and one’s superiors may earn more rewards than the ones being offered.

In western movies portray most of the strong, successful characters as male and the whole movies circle around them and they are the main characters are the movies. In most of the films and novels, women have been confined to the social roles of the wife and the mother, domestic production, childbirth and childcare, family relationships and other female tasks, even unmarried one. The roles of women were set forth for them that a woman was limited in her abilities to survive in man’s world and that she was expected to focus only on her domestic duties. For many western women happily set forth creating a home for their husband and children as we watched in several western movies such as Shane movie, Red River, Stagecoach. Most of the movies show women who totally depend on the men and they are so fragile.

The novel Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about three men that discover a faraway land inhabited only by females. The novel itself is extremely progressive, and is a staple of the women's suffrage movement that occurred in the early 1900s. Although this work touches upon many controversies regarding gender inequality during that period, the primary issue touched upon is the idea that the idea "gender" in and of itself is a social construct, and sexes should not have to feel pressured to conform to the stereotypes associated with a particular gender.

Today we live in a world that continually stresses to us that, "All men are created equal." While this sounds great at face value, further inspection tells us that this is far from realistic and sadly may never be. One can examine any aspect of society whether it be race, religion, language, level of education, sexual orientation or economic status and notice that there are numerous characteristics and factors of identity that enable others to treat others differently. This truth may not be pleasant or make one feel all warm and fuzzy inside, however it is our society’s reality, however dismal it may be. Even if the statement above as to the equality of all men were true, how about women? Clearly women have made tremendous strides towards