Roles

Features, Gender

Gender Roles
By Jessica Stone

Have you ever wondered why things change in our society? One specific thing that has changed is gender roles. According to Wikipedia encyclopedia gender roles is a set of perceived behavioral norms that is associated to the genders of female and male. In the United States gender roles start to influence someone as young as early childhood because of the way our parents bring us up. Parents treat boys and girls differently which is one way that helps them define their gender role. Another aspect that influences gender roles at a young age is the toys that we are taught to play with. For example males play with trucks and women play with dolls. These gender roles have changed drastically from our past to present-day and it will keep on changing and making more positive strides in the future.

If we move back in time to about the 1930’s and looked at the gender roles as they were then they would be different then what we know in our present-day. The female role would be as the caregiver, the one who takes care of the children and the household. The male role is to be the one that works and earns the income for his family. They are looked at as “the bread winners” of the families. During this period of time women were not seen in school institutions beyond high school because they got married and started a family at a young age. It was during World War II when society accepted that women could get a higher education and work out of the household while the men were at war. Once the males returned the women went right back into the household. At this time our society felt that women were not able to do the same work as men because it was believed that women were powerless, fragile, emotional and uneducated. Our culture felt that they would fit best in the household instead of working out in the workforce.

In the past our society felt that every family in our country should be the “nuclear family” which consists of mother, father and children. In the “nuclear family” the mother stays home and the father works. In the past this was the ideal family that everyone wanted to have and if families did not consist of the nuclear family they were looked down upon. In our present-day it has changed because not all families consist of mother and father. It it also seen that mothers are now stepping out of the house and working in the workforce. The “nuclear family” hasn’t disappeared all the way but the non-traditional family is more accepted by our society because women are standing up for what the want and our society has changed the view of what makes up a family.

If we travel to present-day and to our future we can see that gender roles have changed drastically and will constantly be changing in the future. Gender roles are changing because our culture changes and grows to keep up with what males and females want. Women want to be able to work and take care of the house and the children at the same time. They do not want to depend on the male figure for money and also many families need both the mother and father’s income to survive in the United States. Also in our present society there are more one parent families which forces women to work so they can be economically stable. Women also are welcome to get a higher education and are waiting much longer to start a family. In some families the male is the one who takes care of the house and the children while the woman is out working. This is something that we would have never seen in the past and now it is accepted. In many cases when women give birth more fathers are taking paternity leave of absences so they can be with their children and wife during this very important life event. Men are also participating in the household chores like washing dishes, vacuuming and doing laundry. In our past that was only the women’s role and now we are seeing both take part in this work.

Our society still has many barriers that women have to face but they have made one step forward by changing the behavioral norms that gender roles consist of. As everything in our society changes and grows we have to adapt to those changes and be more accepting to change. Having gender roles change over previous generations is one more way of getting closer to having equality in our society.

mwalsh @ April 10, 2008