Social Pressure Demands On The Sexes

The differences between gender roles are not so apparent anymore. Men are not always the typical breadwinners and many women are not stay-at-home mothers. An article by Beaupré, Dryburgh, and Wendy (2010) described the transition that many men are going through. According to Beaupré, et al., (2010), fathers were once considered the forgotten parent. “Until recently studies on the family focused mainly on the mothers” (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Fortunately, both parents are now being focused on. Fathers today are much more involved in the pregnancy and birth of their child and their child’s life in general (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Beaupré, et al., (2010) explained that women’s involvement in the labour force could be a factor to this change. Women are more educated than they were in previous years. And while women want to work more, men want to be more involved in their children’s lives (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Fatherhood is occurring later in adulthood. Research stated that the majority of men are very satisfied with their involvement in their children’s lives. (Beaupré, et al., 2010).

Our gender has an effect on every aspect of our lives, varying from how we view ourselves and other people to how we interact in social and civic life. It also impacts the way we set our goals in opportunity areas such as education, work, and recreation. Gender socialization starts at birth then manifests through family, education, peer groups, and mass media. Gender norms are automatically placed on us, where women should learn how to be nurturing, sensitive, emotional, passive, and always hold a man’s position higher than hers. On the other hand men should be overly confident, aggressive, dominant, and view women beneath them. This paper uses various readings to show how these gender norms are supported and challenged in today’s society.

Women and men are nestled into predetermined cultural molds when it comes to gender in American society. Women play the roles of mothers, housekeepers, and servants to their husbands and children, and men act as providers, protectors, and heads of the household. These gender roles stem from the many culture myths that exist pertaining to America, including those of the model family, education, liberty, and of gender. The majority of these myths are misconceptions, but linger because we, as Americans, do not analyze or question them. The misconception of gender suggests that biological truths no longer dictate our gender roles as men and women; they derive from cultural myths. We, as a nation, need

The modern day woman works outside of the home, but then returns and continues to take care of housework and the children. Sociologists refer to this part of the woman’s day as the, “Second shift.” Two studies conducted found that if a man is more economically dependent on his wife, he is less likely to do housework. However, no evidence suggests that becoming economically independent makes marriage any less desirable for a woman. The family is the initial agent of socialization in their child’s life, however, even though the mother of the family may have the job with longer hours and better pay, the parents will still reinforce traditional gender roles in their household (Thompson 301-302.) This behavior can cause a child to embrace the stereotype that the woman’s only role is to cook, clean, and take care of the children. Even if a woman is the primary

Women are sometimes more nurturing than some men when it comes to taking care of their family members or children. When a woman becomes pregnant they receive a maternity leave which also puts a hold on their income, making it easier for the man of the household to have a higher paying job (Joan Acker, 1989). Another example, when a child of a family gets sick most of the time the woman is the one to leave work early and stay home with the child. Some job sites have paid maternity leave but then many do not. Women have greater recourse to part-time work so they can combine work and family responsibilities (Joan Acker, 1989). During the older days, women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law, married women had no property rights, they were not allowed to vote, married women were not even present in the eyes of the law. From then to now a lot has changed but women still are not

The survey found that it was still very rare for fathers to take primary responsibility for childcare in dual-earner families, no-earner families or families where only the woman worked, showing again inequality in conjugal roles. Therefore Ferri and Smiths findings disagree with the statement, showing inequality in conjugal roles. Many women agree with Ferri and Smith that it is they rather than their

Commonly it is believed that women are naturally more nurturing than men. Which in turn sets a standard that women are more loving and peaceful, far more intuitive, stronger at communication, and by far are the better parent. However this creates a stereotypical box that many females fall all but short of fitting in, and in turn hinders their male counter parts of expressing themselves in similar ways. According to Melanie Tannenbaun of Scientific American, this stereotype that women are indeed the better parent harms not only the women that don’t to stay home, but the men that do. Ideas such as this then proceed to form unyielding gender roles that not only affect the home, but social norms as well

Robert Dorment’s summary from his article talked about that women always complained about men did wrong but men who worked so hard for their family and work-life balance. Richard used that word “castigate” for men that means women scold men, but they did not realize men worked so hard. Other quote about the castigation of men, “…person whose husband, by her own admission, sacrificed much in his own academic career to do other heavy lifting with their children, all so she could pursue her dream job and then complain about it, bitterly, in the pages of a national magazine” (Dorment 708). Anne-Marie Slaughter explained that women who get promotion from other positions that they realized they do not have spent time with their family and some women who leave their jobs because of their family reasons. The quote said, “It is unthinkable that an official would actually step down to spend time with his or her family that this must be a cover for something else” (Slaughter 682). Third article called Women, work and work/life balance: Research roundup talked about the wage inequality and unequal responsibilities between men and women. Women have more family responsibilities than men do because some women are staying at home while taking care of their kids. Last article, Work-Life Balance – An integrated Approach: The case for joint and several responsibility talked about the

The 20th century was the first time women were given many types of job opportunities in America. There has been rapid progress throughout the years regarding gender equality, but there is still much to be done, especially in terms of parenting. Parenting has so much to do with gender inequality because parents set limits for their daughters and sons due to outdated gender roles. Parents have set limits because they have different hopes and standards for their daughters and sons, but some parents have been changing and making sure both their children, regardless of gender, can achieve the same hopes and standards. Although equal rights in the past couple of decades has changed positively, many people still have misogynistic beliefs, especially parents, because of the way they were raised.

Throughout today’s society, almost every aspect of someone’s day is based whether or not he or she fits into the “norm” that has been created. Specifically, masculine and feminine norms have a great impact that force people to question “am I a true man or woman?” After doing substantial research on the basis of masculine or feminine norms, it is clear that society focuses on the males being the dominant figures. If males are not fulfilling the masculine role, and females aren’t playing their role, then their gender identity becomes foggy, according to their personal judgment, as well as society’s.

My beliefs and view on the gender ideology towards work and family is more weighed on one side (Masculine) and partly on the other (Feminine). It is evident that the ‘Masculine’ gender is more dominant in our society and because of this; there is more expectation and responsibility for the masculine gender. However, there is a continual inclusion trend in which we are witnessing the feminine gender assume some roles of the masculine gender. But overall, the masculine effect is still dominant. I personally feel that there should be a good balance of work and family responsibility by the men. It is necessary that the ‘Men’ are mostly responsible for taking the role of the breadwinner of the family therefore, the working hours of the men would have to be met as required by the employer. For example, working 40 hours a week is the minimum in the US but varies in some other places. In a case whereby the man has to take an overtime shift just to meet the needs of the family.

Not only are woman subjected to society norms based on their personality characteristics, but also on their life choices and “domestic responsibilities” questions arise for woman like “who will care for you children and husband”. Montague Kern and Paige P. Edley state that women will continue to be “criticized for abandoning their traditional family roles” (1). This topic is not something that is brought up to their male counterparts. I don’t believe I have ever heard a man be questioned on who was going to assume the responsibility of raising their children. So until society genuinely accepts that raising children and other domestic issues are shared endeavors, then women will continue to face this barrier. (Robson, 208)

Conventionally, females played a very insignificant role in the paid work force of a society as many times they were expected to be home taking care of their family. Their roles at home can often include grocery shopping, meeting all the needs of her children and husband. As time moved on, our society became more accepted of sharing housework between the couples, but even so, the traditionally more feminine housework such as cooking, caring for sick children, and shopping for the entire family are mostly done by the females of the house. It is argued in a research journal Work and Occupations (Witkowski & Leicht, 1995) that in an average North American family, females take on roughly three-quarters of the housework. Even though we are in a democratic society, parenting roles in the household are assigned based on gender rather than in a democratic fashion (Winslow-Bowe, 2009). Because of the many responsibilities and obligations that are associated with the female gender, their career paths are eventually affected for the worse. According to Statistics Canada (2001), for every dollar a man earns, a single woman earns 93 cents and a married woman earns 69 cents. These statistics

The roles of men and women have drastically altered the past century and men now take on some responsibilities that were once viewed as tasks of a woman. As a result women have been able to advance their careers, express their political views, and have become equals next to men in society, which illustrates that had women not been discriminated against and viewed as the homemaker for so long, equality between men and women would have occurred ages ago. In my vision of society an individual's sex would not inhibit one from fully participating in the activities of the community that he or she desired. The burden of childbirth for women would still be present but after the child was born, men would play a more prominent role in the tasks of raising his son or daughter. Sharing the benefits and burdens of child-rearing responsibilities will allow both the male and female to maintain steady employment and balance their schedules to make time for family and a career. Females that wish to enter a profession will be accepted solely upon their abilities, not their gender, and seen as equals in the work place. Should a working woman choose to start a family she deserves a sufficient amount of time away from work (with pay) to care for herself and her newborn baby without being hassled by her employer for not being entirely committed to her job. Also, a man should receive certain benefits

The tradition family is an ideal of the past. Today families typically see full-time employment held by all parents or guardians involved and also consist of somewhere between two and four children on average. With the disappearance of the traditional family comes the appearance of women into the work force1. Women are making headway into jobs in all fields and taking on equivalent if not heavier workloads than men. Another contributing factor the work-family conflict is high rates of divorce and single parenthood; these unfortunate situations force the parents to work and to take on all of the house chores on their own. Number and age of children