Role Gender Gender, the condition of being either a male or female; otherwise known as your sex. Roles are those characteristics that are expected of you by your peers. Put the two together to get gender roles, or a set of behaviors that indicates one's gender, specifically the image projected by a person that identifies their "femaleness or maleness"; these are an overt public presentation of gender identity (dictionary.com). Gender roles are the characteristics or actions expected of you defined solely by your sex. Those who don't conform to gender roles aren't really considered outsiders; they simply are looked at different by society. Gender roles apply to both males and females, and as parents, the roles you expect out of your son or daughter will either cause conformity or anarchy to society. Those who decided to go with the norms of society were accepted with no problems, and those who didn't faced more struggles than others.
Conflicts for those who do not agree with gender roles were physical, emotional, and even mental. A boy who enjoyed cooking could have been considered "gay", and a girl who enjoyed watching sports and wearing "boyish" clothes could be called names such as "tomboy", or even "dyke". Just because my sister likes boxing, it doesn't mean she is a dyke, in fact, she has a fianc and plans to marry HIM, not HER. I understand that not all people agree to socialize our children based on their gender, but there are some cases that take it to the extreme. In history, a guy would get up and go to work, while the woman stayed at home and cleaned the house and cooked dinner. This gave males power to make decisions
over females, which is totally unfair in my eyes. If there was a woman who decided to go off and try to get a job, she would have at least been laughed at, if that's all that happened, she should consider herself pretty lucky.
In the 1950's, a man by the name of Talcott Parsons created what he called a nuclear family. This family consisted of the basic normal family, a mother, father, and two to three children, which was the basic family. Parsons believed that in his family, the females were expressive, and the males were instrumental (Wikipedia). This basically meant that the roles of the female in this family were to bring the family ties closer together, and the male was supposed to work so he could provide for his family. The Parsons model was created to compare two types of families. Ones roles were segregated by gender, and the others roles were not. The model focused on five base ideas to compare by: education, profession, housework, decision making, and child care and education. In the segregated model, education was gender specific; meaning the level of education was different for men and women. Profession was not an option for women; housework was done by the female and a younger daughter, decisions were made by the men, and females were to focus on the well-being of the children as well as educating them. Some families got these beliefs from their culture, and others inherited them from past families, or by experience. The roles of women and the roles of men don't have to be polar opposites any more, even though some families decide that that's what's best for them.
There are many recorded instances where the consequences of non conformity to gender roles were pretty extreme, most in a bad way. For example, a young boy caught playing with pots and pans in place of army guys and sports equipment would be scolded or beaten, or a little girl who wanted to go out and play baseball over chores and cleaning and dolls wasn't accepted and was made fun of (textbook). I'm not sure of any specific deaths due to non conformity to gender roles, but I guess you just never know, there are some weird people out there. These kids who were made fun of didn't really know what to do with themselves, you can' help what you like, and who wants to do something that they don't enjoy, especially if their brother or sister doesn't have to. These types of thoughts were and still are very common, and they cause much confusion for children. The teasing one may encounter will most likely inflict emotional damage, creating a lack of confidence, confusion as to why they are different than everyone else, and in the most extreme cases, maybe even suicidal thoughts. I personally haven't cared to pay much attention to whether my food should be cooked by my mom as opposed to my dad. In my opinion, I like both my mom's cooking and my dad's. Both of them get up every morning and go to work, and when it comes to cleaning the house, both parents help out, and both my sister and I do our parts. My sister played various sports, yet she still had boyfriends. I cleaned my room and went to school and studied by myself, yet I still had various girlfriends. So, obviously gender roles don't exist in my household, and this goes to show you that no matter what you decide to take part in, whether it be those roles society believes you shouldn't do, or those
that you create yourself, I think you should do what you do for yourself, and you shouldn't have to worry about people making fun of you for that.
Gender roles will follow you all the way to the workplace. White men make up around forty five percent of the workplace, and women in general now make up around forty seven percent. Before, it took extremes such as sex to get a woman into a job. Once women started standing up for themselves and making it publicly known what was going on, they could get jobs for themselves. Now that sexual harassment is more known, women don't have to quit upon refusal to have an affair with their boss. Unfortunately, statistics show that women tend to earn a significant amount less than men do.
Along gender roles comes gender socialization. These are the things that your parents or peers do to socialize you while growing up. Examples include blue being the boy color and pink being the girls color. Boys were given things like blocks, trains, Tonka trucks, G. I. Joes; girls were given cooking stations, baby dolls, dresses, Barbie's, and other non physical toys. Boys are basically socialized to be tough, and baby girls are pampered. For example: if a boy falls down, his parents may feel bad, but might let him sit there and suck it up, where as if a girl were to fall, both parents would rush to pick it up and make sure everything was ok. So basically, you are socialized by gender from the get go. The irony in this is that it's scientifically proven that boys are more fragile as infants than girls, but the parents will respond to an infant daughter's cry rather than an infant son's cry (faqs.org).
These concepts are constantly being drilled in our heads, as they are basically everywhere. They are frequently seen by kids in things such as advertising, television, and videogames. In things such as magazine ads, men are seen as muscular and rugged, where as women are dressed sexy and are considered submissive to the males looking at the advertisement. On television, things that men are shown doing are more physical labor like, and they are also seen in commercials for pickup trucks, while women can usually be seen in commercials including cooking shows, and clothing commercials. Video games are a very good example of gender roles and socialization. I personally have played games where man is stronger than woman, and women play roles such as cooks and baby producers if you will. There are now games like Xena where a woman is the main kick-ass character, but for the most part, physical characters are filled by males. The cover for a video game will usually tell you what type of game it is. I hate to say it, but the games with a female pictured on the cover usually tend to be very soft games, which still may be fun, but still go along with the norms of gender roles.
We not only see gender roles in things such as TV videogames and ads, but we also see it in products in clothing stores, grocery stores, and Wal-Mart's (yes, Wal-Mart is its own type of store). When you into walk Kohl's, nine times out of ten the store will be overrun by feminine jewelry and clothing, unless you go to a men's specific clothing store then it's a different story. What I'm saying is that shopping is part of the female role. You
ask a woman what things they like to do, and you usually hear shopping somewhere along the lines. Gender roles basically prevent any man from shopping in the women's clothing departments because they will be considered gay or something, unless they are shopping for another woman (Development through Life 2002). When you go to the grocery store next time, take a look at the names and labels of the name brand products. With exceptions such as Uncle Ben's and Orville Redenbacher's, the majority of the product names have some kind of female related topic. I'm not saying that it's all about women; I'm just saying the majority of the products conform. Even Wal-Mart is like that. There are is more space for women's clothing, and there are areas of Wal-Mart dedicated simply to women, such as the tampon isle. There are also places such as Dick's Sporting Goods where most of the apparel is men's sizes, but women can buy them as well. It's somewhat unfortunate and unfair that society accepts women dressing in men's clothing, and rejects the notion of men wearing women's clothing. Not saying that my opinion really matters to all, but I wouldn't be caught dead shopping in the women's department for my clothes, I guess it's more of a mental thing, a mental block in my head that considers it wrong. Oh wait, that's part of gender roles and gender socialization right? Yeah.
Dr. Benjamin Spock states that girls are complimented more for looks, while boys are complimented by accomplishments or achievements. He added examples such as girls mainly are called cute or pretty, and boys are appraised in such ways like "Aren't you a big boy, standing up by yourself!" Spock lectures that these comments and compliments aren't
necessarily harmful to the child, but it give them a negative mental aspect of themselves. If a girl is constantly appraised for being pretty or cute, she might begin to thing she is only appreciated for her looks, not her accomplishments. If you think about it, what Spock is saying is exactly true. You probably aren't going to call your baby or young boy pretty, and I doubt you give your baby girl toys like baseballs and bats and allow her to play in the mud and go out and get beat up. If we all just took a step back and looked, maybe we would see that gender roles and socialization into those roles aren't really fair to the baby. It's your life, you should be able to pick your own fate (faqs.org).
Gender roles can be learned thru many ways, but socialization from the family and culture are the two biggest causes. In Islamic culture, each gender has its own assigned code. The role a man must fill includes being a guardian and making decisions, while a woman is to stay at home with the children and cook. The women are to cover all parts of skin on their body, and most men wear some kind of hat or turban on their heads. The reason women cannot show skin is because in Islamic culture, women are bred to keep the culture going, and a women's skin to them is somewhat sexual. Men and women are even segregated by gender while worshiping, and in family prayer, the man is to lead (Safraproject).
Along with the conformity to gender roles in Islam, Japanese culture practices similar things of their own. Although it is changing as we speak, when you asked a classroom of
children what type of occupation they would like to pursue, the number of different things a boy would pick was significantly higher than the number a girl would pick. Boys would look for any kind of job they could find, and girls picked things such as nurses or teachers. Not saying that men aren't allowed to be nurses or teachers in this culture, I'm just saying that it wasn't very common for a young boy to have them as the profession of his choice. Also in Japanese culture, women are to keep to themselves. They have more rights than Islamic females, but they aren't allowed to be nosey. Women are also starting to be allowed to do more tasks. They go along with the "second shift" type of thing where they go and work during the day while the kids are at school, then come home and cook and study with the children (findarticles.com). In the future, I predict that most cultures that are extreme will soften, and those that are already soft with gender roles will convert to something where roles are almost invisible, kind of like how it is in our country.
Some people refuse to believe that male and female bodies differ from each other, even though science proves them wrong. Studies show that females are left-side oriented, referring to the brain, while males are right-side oriented. The left side controls things such as language, helping females out in language ability and articulation. The right side controls physical aspects of the body and aiming. Although there are plenty of females that are far stronger than I am, and there are plenty of males better at speech then some girls, the majority abide by this statistic (faqs.org).
Times are changing, and thankfully women are being given more rights. Mothers are the biggest influences on their daughters. Girls being raised in the 70's were shyer than ones born in the late 80's and 90's (Development through Life 2002). The reason being is that mothers in the 70's were taught by their mothers to do certain things and act certain ways, and girls being raised in the 90's see things whether it be in real life or something like MTV that change ways values and beliefs.
Thank god for change. Instead of women having to worry about getting hurt by a man, then men have to worry about getting in trouble by what they say. I'm a firm believer in equal treatment, and it isn't fair to women that some men can't keep perverted comments or touching to themselves. I understand that one might look at me and say that past times would have been easier for me simply because I'm a guy, but I just can't let myself be the everyday predictable man. I would never be able to be the type of person that could just go up to a woman and tell them what I think about their secondary sex characteristics, that's just stupid. Although females aren't expected to be the housekeepers any more, they generally tend to do so anyways. Time will only bring new and better ways, and hopefully we get to see some of these changes in our lifetimes. All in all, I think the changes have all been for the better. Before, women had no rights. They would stay at home and be housekeepers and baby makers until they died, and would pass this on from generation to generation. Men were workers and raised their loyal sons to work just as hard, if not harder. Somewhere along the lines came women's rights
and women could finally get a job! Unfortunately it wasn't as easy as it looked, considering that women would either be rejected or raped and rejected by employers. Once people all became aware of consequences of sexual harassment, jobs for women became more common, and easier to find. Now we have equal treatment and live in an almost completely desegregated country, where both men and women can have the same jobs. Our only basic problem with gender roles nowadays are socialization of our young. We still give boys the tough guy aspect, and girls the more prissy side of life. Maybe one day, we will consider the future of our children instead of society's norms to create our own decision; but you never know I guess. People will be people.
In the future, I predict that the changes we have already made will stay intact, and small things such as gender socialization will take care of themselves. In a perfect world, a baby would be able to decide their fate right out f the womb. This won't be happening for obvious reasons, but more than likely there will be studies that will hint us as to what to do with our kin, therefore giving us the ability to make the best decision possible.