The Importance Of Gender Roles

When a person is born, they are either male or female. Before they are born, their parents are going to set goals and expectations for them. Sometimes parents will name their child after a famous celebrity hoping they will be just as great as them. Each gender will have different ways they should live their life in order to stay within their gender role. Some will meet the expectations and other will not. That does not make them look less of their gender, they will just be expected to meet them. Over the years, some gender roles have submerged and others have risen above. They will be able to show how the gender roles are supposed to be in jobs, education, and marriage and also how they can benefit from stepping out of the gender roles.

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.

Study on gender role stereotypes has shown that there are several negative effects of stereotyping. The study on how gender role stereotyping effects children is not as prevalent because most believe that it doesn’t matter, since children are just forming their stereotype so children do not care. However, some psychologists have done some research on it, and from their research found out that children used a mixture of moral and social conventional reasoning

Gender roles are basically “society norms” It tells types of behaviors that are considered acceptable for a person based on their sex. The expectations include of how a person should act, dress, and talk.

Gender Roles can be defined as roles society expects people to play on account of their sex life. Like all roles, gender roles are made up of sets of expectations, so they can be thought of as sets of expirations, so they can be thought of as sets of expectation that are attached to sex.(pp: 220 John E. Farley & Michael W. Flota).

In today’s society, there are many types of viewpoints between both females and males on many things in life. Most of the viewpoints would have to go towards the males, because people view them to do so much in life. One main example of this would have to be the male’s role in relationships. To society, everyone sees the male’s role to be the one to protect his loved one as well as provide for the both of them and their family. Society also sees that the man’s main role is to be the “man of the house” when it comes to relationships and not letting their wives do much. Males are even seen as fearless and not afraid to show any emotions. This can make young people absorb that the men are the individuals that have to do everything in a relationship which can cause them overdo things or it can cause young males to not even want to do these things because it is overwhelming for them as an individual.

The topic of gender roles is a subject that has been discussed and argued upon for several years, regarding the depiction and expectations of what it means to be a man and, conversely, what it means to be a woman. Along with the topic comes what and how society defines masculinity and femininity. Society has given men the title of being masculine due to the reflection of  dominance, strength, aggressiveness, independence , and the use of interpersonal skills. Whereas society has given females the title of being feminine for having the qualities of being vulnerable, modest, dependent, and delicate. The definitions for both genders follow behind the depiction and expectation on how one may act, whether male or female. A male wants to appear

Gender roles govern the way that most of the world’s population interact with one another. Many African cultures uphold deeply patriarchal gender roles which dictate how women and men interact with one another. Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, a staunch feminist, gives readers a look into Nigerian gender roles in her short story Birdsong. Her writing in Birdsong and her TEDtalks explore and expose how these gender roles are harmful and how important it is for many stories of young women of color to be heard.

There are billions of people in the world with many different ethnicities, backgrounds, religions, and beliefs. There are many families with their own characteristics and ways of running their home, whether they are Hispanic, Native American, or African American. Perhaps they are in upper class or maybe they live below poverty. They could be a Muslim or Catholic and perhaps they believe education is not the key to success, but the real key is hard work. Regardless of these variations, one factor that plays a role in all aspects: gender. When a person is born, they are automatically dressed in either blue or pink. The newborn is either boy or girl. Have people thought about why girls wear dresses or why boys wear jeans and sneakers? There is more to what culture tells us, when it comes down to how we play our gender roles. It is really about how our bodies are naturally made that determines our gender role. It is not, society that tells a person they can be a mother because only women can give birth to children. It is not culture that makes men stronger or bigger, it is hormones and the natural structure of males to have more muscle

This class focused on sexuality, gender roles, and gender expectation and how it is all related. All of these we discussed are a big part of human sexuality. We talked about how gender roles are put on a person before he or she is even actually born. Gender roles are established as soon as we are assigned a gender by color. If you are a boy more than likely you are going to be associated with baby blue. If you are a girl on the other hand you are identifies as pink.

I have realized that culture has played a significant role in creating a perception for myself and my family. The Pakistani culture that my parents were raised up in, they have tended to understand it and be able to continue their life with those ideas. Therefore, when the topic of gender is thought about, upon many experiences in my life, I know I have had many barriers and even situations where I did not agree with regarding gender.

In our culture, we have this notion that men are better, more natural leaders than women. We see this in the fact that we have never had a female president, and that when we have a female elected to be a judge in the Supreme Court, it’s a big deal. Women and girls have always been told and taught to be docile and submissive, which is the exact opposite of what you want to see in a leader. Because of this, the idea that men make better leaders than women is a widely accepted fact. However, it is socially constructed and not true.

Society today places many ideals when it comes to proper behaviours regarding gender roles. These are considered societal norms that are widely debated and controversial. Society has created a norm, which encompasses specific expectations and rules that change the daily lives of men and women, giving them specific tasks and behaviours to abide by. These standards are known as gender roles, which are defined as distinguishing actions, thoughts, and feelings of males and females. Gender roles are said to be a result of nature, which is a natural process, every male or female is to follow. On the other hand it can be a result of nurture, which changes ones way of thinking and adapting their lifestyle to fit their environment. Either way gender roles are a part of someone’s life from the moment of their birth, as they develop, and long after that, this proves that gender roles are influential to a person’s life and development. This essay examines how media such as music, family life, and different parenting styles encompass gender roles and teaches behaviours regarding them. Therefore, gender roles define males and females are a result of nurture and not nature.

Aspects of gender roles that are especially relevant to understanding leadership, pertain to agentic and communal attributes (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995). Agentic characteristics are attributed more strongly to men than women. For example, males tend to be more aggressive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, daring, self-confident, and competitive. In employment settings, agentic behaviors might include speaking assertively, competing for attention, influencing others, initiating activity directed to assigned tasks, and making problem-focused suggestions. Communal characteristics are attributed more to women than men, and describes women to be more concerned with the welfare of other people. For example, women tend to be more affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturing, and gentle. In employment settings, communal behaviors might include speaking tentatively, not drawing attention to oneself, accepting others’ direction, supporting and soothing others, and contributing to the solution of relational and interpersonal problems (Klenke, 2003). To address the question of whether men and women have different leadership styles, Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani (1995) conducted a review of leadership studies. These studies of leadership styles showed women to be both interpersonally oriented and self-governing, and men to be both task-oriented and dictatorial.

Gender roles are extremely important to learn about, as they can be incredibly harmful. They limit a person’s individuality, prevent people from truly expressing themselves and their feelings, and negatively affect people’s mental health. The following statement describes some of the different types of gender roles: “The strongest gender stereotypes for women were that theory are more emotional, aware of others’ feelings, kind and warm than men, and more likely to look after the house, and cry, Haines said. The strongest gender stereotypes for men were that they are more competitive, feel superior, and that they should be head of household and responsible for household repairs” (Beall, p. 24-25). Essentially, women are supposed to be warm