Gender Stereotypes Dbq

Gender stereotypes are common in the United States today, even though many men and women have been working hard to defeat it. The task is made difficult however, when society in general implants the idea of gender roles into the mind of a child. Two authors, Judy Mann of The Difference and Bernard Lefkowitz of Our Guys face the issue of gender roles and stereotypes, and how they affect our lives today.

Women are known to be the nurturing part of human nature. It is women who birth and generally care for the young of human kind; however, the roles of women have progressed to be so much more in today’s society. Now women are looked to not only as a homemaker, but a breadwinner as well. In many families, the women provide a major source of income and are responsible for the wellbeing of the family. “More than a quarter century has passed since Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift powerfully made the case that women cannot compete fairly with men when they are doing two jobs and men are doing only one.” (Moravcsik). He goes on to say that women’s roles have shifted to being able to balance a job and a family at one time. Despite the many jobs that

On August 26,1920, the 19th Amendment,which guaranteed women the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution

Gender bias is not all about stereotype, but it also classifies the gender to “be” certain things and

Stereotypes about women include: women are supposed to be skinny, women are supposed to shave, women are weaker than men, and women are not as smart as men. Gender profiling about men include: men are supposed to be strong or muscular, men should be the breadwinner of the family, and that men need to be in control over women. Stereotyping is damaging to those who are victims. It can lead to abuse and bullying. It encourages hateful behavior which many people carry into their adult

. This is a huge problem in todays society. Gender stereotypes are a set of expectations of what a girl or a boy should act and look like. While many people tend to stay in their respective stereotype, there are still many who objectify the stereotype and are usually judged for it. This has taken away the idea of being an individual.

Living in 21st century United States, being a much more liberal and inclusive environment than prior decades, gender “roles” and their normalities are being severely questioned and challenged. Americans have defined and established gender stereotypes that have become a critical part of how we look at gender roles and create biases about each gender. Stereotypes assume people who 'belong ' to a group will appear, behave, look, speak or sound like others from that group. The values, norms, practices, behaviors and traditions associated with the group are shared by all members of the group. For example, gay men are promiscuous, women are maternal and men don 't show emotions. Stereotypes are often dismissive, negative, and they are sometimes

Gender stereotypes are mostly taken for granted at a young age: girls are told to play with dolls and boys are told to play with trucks. But as children grow older they find themselves in a world where the reality of gender roles and stereotypes aren’t acknowledged, and the illusion of gender neutrality is commended. If gender roles are becoming more neutral, then it would follow that gender role stereotypes are also becoming more lax. However, in actuality this is not true.

From gender roles, we, the people of society, are able to determine whether someone identifies as a male or a female. Both biological and social factors tend to determine what gender roles a person takes on. However, there are also gender stereotypes, which are “the fixed and oversimplified beliefs about the ways in which men and women ought to behave” (Rathus, 2010). Often times, gender stereotypes are related back to the traditional beliefs of when women were responsible for staying home and being the caregivers and men were responsible for going out to work and bringing home the food, supplies, and money that the family needed (Rathus, 2010).

Background Information: Gender stereotypes are simplistic generalizations about the genders’ attributes, differences, and roles in society. They still exist today because “human beings are social animals,” (Cohen 1). Inessa Cohen is elaborating that people naturally want to belong to a group or connect. The stereotype women are supposed to cook, do housework, and care for the family creates the idea that there are things specific genders can or cannot do.

A gender stereotype is a generalized view or perception about characteristics that are or should be possessed by, or the roles that are or should be performed by women and men. A gender stereotype is harmful and can lessen women when it limits their capacity to develop their personal abilities, chase their professional careers and make choices about their lives and life plans. The obvious biological form of men and women arise the challenge of the hidden language metaphors in science. While women have begun to earn acceptance in the workforce in the past decades, men have not yet seen societal acceptance in politics, let alone as caregivers and homemakers. Gender roles exist exclusively because society as a whole chooses to accept them, but they are supported by the media.

Some of the strengths of this study are the various areas of a participant's perspective that were evaluated including their implicit association between careers and both genders and their likeliness to sexual harass (Weber et. al. 108). The study also kept the sexual harassment vignette in the same pose and with the same facial expression regardless of how she was dressed, conservatively or provocatively, to ensure that no other body language was attributing to the participants attitudes (109). The study also addressed participants internal factors that could not be measured, these include personality factors attributing to perceptions of masculinity and femininity as well as possible gender role conflict within the study.

Gender stereotypes surface from an early age, from the toys we’re told to play with as children to the type of behaviors we’re encouraged to display. These stereotypes paint an over generalized picture of the population to which they pertain to. They can be very damaging to a person especially when they are imposed on people who fall outside of the norm of the stereotype. One stereotype for example, is that men do not face rape or other domestic violence.

This arguement seems to be a consistent element of society, and one that could easily be eliminated. What I’ve discovered by this research is that there are both positive and negative stereotypes, when discussing gender stereotyping. As a society we need the stereotypes of a male versus a female, and that sociologically men have different roles than women. The negative stereotypes, of labeling all men and all women to act a certain way, is unjustified. Everyone is genetically different and that’s the foremost conclusion that needs to be accepted and

Not only are women held to an unfair standard nowadays, the truth is they always were. Since the beginning women were expected to do certain things, wear certain things, and say certain things. “Female gender stereotypes always play on the notion of women’s inequality to men” (Gender Stereotypes.) The women stereotype has evolved throughout the years, yet has still remained persistent. Contrary to popular belief, that this issue is getting much better in recent years, a study by Psychology Women Quarterly shows female stereotypes are close to the same as they were thirty years ago.