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Breaking Gender Codes In TED Talk By Alaa Murabit

Satisfactory Essays

From childhood to adulthood, perceptions on gender are shaped by society and culture. Moreover, the pressure of social expectations on culture causes women to be afraid of breaking gender codes. This in turn, created a clear distinction between women’s expressive roles and men’s instrumental roles. Furthermore, Alaa Murabit from TED talk recounts her past and exemplifies the importance of giving women a voice in society. She believes that through culture, women are cultivated into feminine and subordinate beings. As a result of this, the patriarchy between women and men subjected them towards inequality.

The notion of men being the superior beings were heavily imbedded into society. They were given the instrumental role to fulfill societal practical needs and were more valued in society. In contract to men who were labelled as masculine and superior, women were judged to be more feminine and inferior. Women were given the expressive role to fulfil the emotional needs of society. Additionally, due to their gender, men are more prone to acclaiming great social and economic power. Whereas, societal expectations of women prevent them from achieving more power and income than men. They were expected to behave in certain ways such as crossing their legs, in other words, to follow their gender code and to “adapt daily …show more content…

This in turn, led to gender codes and inequality to occur within society. Men were highly regarded and valued as important individuals in society, whereas women were prejudiced against men. As a result of patriarchy, women were disallowed from achieving more power and income than men. In the TED talk recoding, Alaa Murabit established that women should be free from inequality. She states that this can only occur, if they were given the opportunity to have a voice. Thus, removal of patriarchy would allow equality to occur within

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