The Negative Consequences of Gender Roles Essay

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

Although the issue of women’s rights has attracted international recognition and support, women still face many inequalities and barriers. Gender-based violence and economic discrimination are problems in many parts of the world.

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).

Throughout the history of society, women and men both have faced the constricting roles forced upon them, from a young age; each gender is given specific social and cultural roles to play out throughout their lives. Little girls are given dolls and kitchen toys, little boys are given dinosaurs and power tool toys, if one was to step out of this specified role, social conflict would ensue. Contrast to popular belief, sex is a biological construct, and gender is a social construct specifying the roles men and women are to follow to be accepted into society as “normal”. The effects of gender roles have had on women have proved harmful over the decades. Although the woman’s involvement in society has improved throughout the decades,

Women have virtually the same rights as men. However, the fault needing to be recognized in today’s society is the way that women are treated. Even in simple areas, such as jobs, women are put on the back burner. A woman is able to become a CEO of a company, nonetheless, she will struggle twice as hard as a man would. Even as an employee, women are statistically paid less than men are.

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

Ron Burgundy: "I'm a man who discovered the wheel, and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a 1/3 the size of us...It's science."

Over the course of history, gender inequalities have been a prevalent issue amongst countries around the world. The notion, women are inferior to men has shaped their treatment in all aspects of life. Women were subjected to a patriarchal role in society, the men worked and women took care of domestics to some degree greater or lesser depending the country they resided in. In the late 19th and early 20th century women started rising up against male dominated societies in feminist movements. These movements were campaigns and reform plans to combat issues of equal pay, sexual violence, and denial of suffrage, reproductive rights, equal job opportunities and property rights. Thus observing women in Great Britain and Saudi Arabia today one can see how the role women play in society has dramatically changed from 1800s till now.

Women’s advance in power is a hindrance to the development of equal rights in a traditional patriarchal society through the oppression of men by emotional restriction, and an excessive amount of guidelines that women expect only men to follow. The escalation of women’s prestige in society results in an imbalance of privilege shared between the two genders.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Social status and structures have definitely shaped the construction and experience of gender inequality. Men and women are constantly analyzed, compared, and grouped together in society. The result of this yields discrepancies in how sexes are viewed by society. Throughout my examination and explanation of gender inequality, I concluded both men and women are victims to gender inequality.