Gender Roles in Utopian Societies Essay

1. Why did Cato object to repealing the Oppian law? What was the basis of his objections?

For the longest time, women’s role in society was very narrow and set in stone. Women weren’t given the chance to decide life for their own, and there was a very sharp distinction of gender roles. Women were viewed as inferior, weak, and dependant. They were expected to be responsible for the family and maintainance of the house. But as the 19th century began, so did a drastic change in society. Women started voicing their opinions and seeking change. Trying to break away from this ideology called “cult of domesticity” was a lengthy, burdensome, and demanding struggle.

In most cultures, boys and girls are treated very differently. Despite the differences of gender, upbringing creates gender behavior, including aggression and gentility; societal stereotypes of gender, and most importantly, gender-based discrimination.

“Look at us! We’re just like everyone else. We’ve bought into the same ridiculous delusion; this idea that you have to settle down and resign from life.” (April Wheeler, Revolutionary Road). It has become a society norm that women are meant to serve housewives; to cook, clean, garden, and nurture children, even though they are much more capable of other things. The role of women is greatly overseen, as they are not perceived to be of their full potential, rather than as societies idealistic expectation. This is because men and those who are wealthy are unable to look past gender and accept women as of equal significance.

Gender roles of diverse cultures have differed immensely throughout history. The evolution of gender roles first began in the Paleolithic Age and then began to transform with the transformation of the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age. Women in Mesopotamia, India, Greece, China, and Rome were not treated as equals and viewed as inferior to men. Cultures like Egypt and Persia had similar laws for women and treated them with more respect out of any of the other cultures.

While social change has brought on more changes than what women are a custom too, at one point in history women actually felt a form of importance in fulfilling their roles not only in the home; but outside as well. “These demographic shifts account for many new or altered roles, such as increased number of duel-earner families, later and fewer marriages, fewer children, increased life expectancy, and the massive migration shifting employees across a nation and across the globe” (Lindsey, 2011, pg. 275).

Parity of basic needs, elimination of poverty, and balance of power within society are features of Utopia. However, current culture may find the manipulation of the individual for the good of the commonwealth and the indifferent attitude towards women to be dystopic features of Utopia that hinder it from being an idyllic place.

In this session, I will discuss the gender roles in my family. The definition of gender role is the degree to which a person adopts the gender-specific behaviors ascribed by his or her culture (Matsumoto, D. R., & Juang 2013, 156). For example, traditional gender roles recommend that males are aggressive, angry, and unemotional. It goes further and explains that the male should leave the home every day to make a living and be the main wage earner. The traditional gender role for the female purpose is to stay at home and care for the children. It explains that the female is to be nurturing, caring, and emotional (Matsumoto, D. R., & Juang 2013, 156). These traditional roles for female and male are the opposite of one another. It is believed that the culture is likely to influence our perception about gender role in a family. In my family, my parents utilize the traditional gender role. Growing up, my father went to work every day and my mother stayed home with me and my sister. I believe my parents were influence by their parents and their culture to be traditional gender role parents. My father explained to me that they chose traditional parenting role because both sides of the family utilized traditional parenting gender roles. I believe my parents felt pressure to obtain the gender roles of the mother staying home with the children while the father worked. However, when my younger sister was old enough to go to school, my mother started to work. It was believed that when

In her article, Emily Martin discusses how society reshapes natural biological processes based on gender stereotypes. That these stereotypes believe that women’s biological processes are inferior to men and they are overall less worthy. Emily Martins goal in writing this article is to reveal the different gender stereotypes in regards to the scientific language of biology. And in return, she hopes to change the influence they have on the general population. She believes that it is human nature to take gender roles and apply them to certain situations as if they are fact. She thinks that this change was brought upon based on human socio economic forces.

Real Lives of Most Men." He says to a friend of his "This must be a

     Femininity and masculinity are topics that have been debated over in our society extensively, through psychological research and day to day interaction with people. Children learn from their parents as well as society the concept of “feminine” and “masculine.” The majority of people tend to believe that these conceptions are biological but I believe it is more cultural. From birth, female children are shaped by society as being sweet, caring, loving, and delicate and usually associated with the color pink. While male children are shaped by being tough, aggressive, and competitive and associated with the color blue. As these children grow, the boy is given a football to play with and the girl a

Men and women are different. How different depends on what stereotype one chooses to believe. Although it has been argued that some stereotypes are positive, they are never beneficial. Society creates gender stereotypes and perpetuates them through societal institutions. In this paper the roles of gender will be analyzed regarding education, public policy, and the workplace. How education shapes gender, the gender norms in government, the law, policies, and the role of gender in the workplace will be discussed.

The textbook identifies four approaches to gender development: biological, interpersonal, cultural, and critical. Define each theory. Then answer the following question: which of the theoretical approaches to gender do you find the most valid? Be sure to include at least two examples from your own experience as well as two scholarly sources to back up your claim.

Gender inequality has been an issue since long before the 1840s, when feminists finally brought the problem to light. Most ancient cultures were societies based on gender inequality, skewed towards male-dominance. Most societies are still mostly patriarchal, in fact. Patriarchy is the root of discrimination between sexes and genders and has been for a very long time.

The concept of gender denotes the distinction between culturally driven and created roles of masculinity and femininity. These specific and normalized attitudes and behaviors transcend and effect how differently men and women live their lives. Based on society’s continual re-enforcement of such gender stereotypes, we see an on-going dilemma of gender inequality. Though some may argue that men experience gender inequality, this seems to exist on a much more invasive level for women. As of recently, the awareness of gender inequality in the workplace has increased. With the fight for equal pay and equal respect, society is already making strides towards the equality of women. With that being said, one aspect of gender inequality that seems