2. • Pertains to what is biological
• Refers to the anatomical and other biological differences between females
3. • Refers to the way a community defines what it is to be a woman or a man
• Each community expects women and men to look, think, feel, and act in
certain ways, simply because they are women or men. In most
communities, for example, women are expected to prepare food, gather
water and fuel, and care for their children and partner. Men, however, are
often expected to work outside the home to provide for their families and
parents in old age, and to defend their families from harm.
4. • Gender roles are passed down from adults to children.
• Children watch their elders closely, noticing how they behave, how they
treat each other, and what their roles are in the community.
5. • Women are expected to be wives and mothers.
• Most communities value men’s work more than women’s work.
• Women are often considered more emotional than men, and they are free
to express these emotions with others. Men, however, are often taught
that showing emotions like fear, sadness, or tenderness is ‘unmanly’, so
they hide these feelings.
• Women are often discouraged from speaking—or forbidden to attend or
speak—at community meetings.
• Women and men who have sexual relations with people of the same sex
(homosexuals) are sometimes made to feel like outcasts in their own
communities
