Gender Roles Essay Gender Role Theory Gender Roles Gender Roles Gender Roles Gender Roles Essay Gender Roles Essay

1. Gender Roles Essay
Gender Roles
Written Paper #1
Rory Muskin
SOC101C15
Kristin Grant
Abstract
Assignment Instructions
After watching the films, write a response paper (4–5 paragraphs) based upon on the following
questions:
1) Are the differences between boys and girls based upon biology, or are they just social
constructions? Include educational material to support the position.
2) How could children learning specific roles for boys and girls be harmful to society? Include
educational material to support the position.
3) Are the gender roles for boys and girls as limiting as in previous generations or are they beginning
to change? Include educational material to support the position.
Submit your...show more content...
Physically, women were built to with stand more pain, necessary for child birth, and a body that was
tailored towards nursing the children, with softer edges. Her brain was also built for problem
solving, but was instilled with so much more. She was also capable of compation, tenderness,
intelligence, multitasking, and reason. These traits that were given to women, had to be taught to man
, and would help in the evolution of our species as humans (Eckert, Penelope and McConnell–Ginet,
Sally, 1997).
These basic and primitive rules that were ingrained in us by nature have been the essence of
human civilization. Over the last hundred years, these rules have been broken. Man, through the
female protests, were now starting to see that women were so much more than home makers who
were being pushed around by man for ages. Women's voices were starting to be heard. For too
long has society deemed what was right for women (whose laws were written by man)? As
women gained rights, so did man's perception on women start to gain more respect. From the days
of "Rosie the Riveter", when women were involved in what was once man's work, keeping the
workforce going at home while the majority of men were off at WWII. To today, where women
have almost as many rights as men, the view of society has changed and evolved. Nowadays, it
seems that these once set in stone rules are being broken.
Whether you grew up watching cartoons or

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3. Gender Role Theory
Palapattu, Kingery, & Ginsburg (2006) conducted a research study that investigates the gender role
theory as it expresses the perceived gender differences in anxiety indicators amongst adolescences.
The primary focus of this study was to examine the affiliation between gender roles orientation,
self–esteem, and anxiety symptoms amongst a community sample of African American
adolescences. There were two hypotheses for this research article is: 1.) gender role orientation
would be associated with anxiety symptoms such that femininity would be associated with higher
levels of anxiety symptoms while masculinity would be associated with lower levels of anxiety. 2)
Gender role orientation and gender would both account for unique variance in anxiety...show more
content...
The participant for this research study consisted of 114 adolescences that were selected from an
urban parochial high school with a history of educating African Americans.
The instruments that were used for this study was the Children's Sex Role Inventory which
consisted of 60 items, which can be compared to the Bem Sex Role Inventory for adults. This
measure had two different scales which were being measured, one was for masculine traits and one
was for Feminine traits. The finding for this study suggested that possessing masculine behaviors had
a negative link with anxiety indicators, whereas having feminine behaviors had a positive link with
anxiety indicators.
However, the current study which was conducted by Negga, Feven; Applewhite, Sheldon,
Livingston, & Ivor (2007) focused on the African American college students and stress, school racial
composition, self–esteem and social support. The research question focused on the relationship
between self–esteem, social support, school racial compositions at historically black college
university (HBCU) and predominately white Institutions (PWI). Furthermore, the objective of this
study was to acknowledge the affiliation between stress, self–esteem, and social support for
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4. Gender Roles
Gender Roles and Their Effects
Sometimes in our society, gender roles can take over and kids are subconsciously learning that
boys and girls must act a certain way, be interested in certain things, and be "masculine" or
"feminine." It's degrading. Our whole life gender roles are socially constructed as we grow up, but
such thoughts become such a norm that it seems to be biologically constructed. In different periods
of time gender roles may have been worse or better, or even in some different cultures. From the
day you are born, you already have expected ideas of how you should be that have been ingrained
in our heads. Your parents paint your room pink because they found out you are going to be a girl,
and your brother's room is blue....show more content...
The concept of manliness and how it belittles women begins at an early time. This is because
when we are young, we are already learning ideas of how a man should be and what characteristics
they should have. For example we teach young boys to be tough, and we tell boys to "man up" or
that "boys dont cry." These phrases can have such a strong impact on boys because it teaches them
not to have emotions. Being tough and not showing emotion is very different, they need to be
taught that it's just as okay for them to have and express their emotions as it is for girls. Keeping in
their feelings could end badly, we shouldn't want people to not be able to express themselves
because we teach them it's not socially acceptable, it's an unfortunate concept. Another important
topic that people believe to exist is masculine privilege. The belief that men have more rights than
women, and these privileges may be hard for men to notice since they have been so
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5. Gender Roles
From the day that we are born our gender is influenced to partake in certain gender roles
depending on our sex. One's sex is distinguished by biological characteristics that set us apart,
while our gender "consists of whatever behaviors and attitudes a group considers proper for its
males and females" (Henslin 292). Males are influenced to partake on more aggressive roles to show
power and dominance, whereas, female are influenced to partake on more nurturing and subservient
roles. However, if one fails to do so they are labeled a feminist "not masculine/feminine enough" or
gay/lesbian.
Social factors have made a huge impact by controlling what we perceive as being acceptable for both
male and female, if not they are labeled "not being feminine enough" or being tomb girls for being
a bodybuilder or participating in ruff sports, along with males being labeled as "not masculine
enough" for being small and soft spoken....show more content...
Men are called gay for liking to be clean and smell good and wear tight and colorful clothes or
pursuing a nurse career rather than a doctor and female are called lesbians for not caring too much
about their appearance or preferring to hangout out with males rather than females.
Furthermore, women whom believe that they should be "politically, economically and socially
equal" to men are called feminists (Henslin 302). It has even gone as far as to men telling women
that they are "too focused trying to be like men that they are losing their uniqueness," when in fact,
women are not trying to be like men but trying to be treated
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6. Gender Roles
Throughout the years, gender roles have been present in our day–to–day lives and within our
households. We were taught from a young age how boys are supposed to behave or carry
themselves as well as how girls should act or dress. These views that were instilled in us at a very
young age evolved into the gender role opinions most people acquire today. The most common or
"traditional" opinion of what the preferred gender roles should be are the man belongs in the work
place making the money for the household, while the woman remains at home making along with
raising the children and keeping the home clean with a hot meal for when the man returns home.
Over a period of time the "traditional" gender roles society obtained began to be questioned
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7. Gender Roles Essay
Gender Roles
While I was growing up, gender roles were highly defined by my parents and teachers as well as all
other societal influences. Boys were taught to do 'boy' things and girls were taught to do 'girly'
things. The toys that children play with and the activities that are encouraged by adults demonstrate
the influence of gender roles on today's youth.
In my formative years, the masculine traits that I learned came out because of the activities that my
parents had me engage in and the things that they expected from me. The expectations that my
parents held for my sister, on the other hand, varied from those that they had for me, and this was
made apparent through the different activities that occupied her time. My...show more content...
My sister would jump rope or hullahoop. I remember when my sister wanted to skateboard because
I was doing it and my parents would not let her because they said she would get hurt. My mother
would cook with my sister, but never with me. My dad would take me to basketball and soccer
games.
When you?re young enough that your parents still make all of your fashion decisions, they dress
you according to gender roles. I would never wear colors like pink or orange. I wore blue, black,
and green. Little girls? clothes had flowers and ladybugs on them. My mother used to care what my
sister left the house wearing, while it made no difference to her what I had on.
When I was ten years old, I specifically remember a few double standards that existed. I was allowed
to call girls, but my sister was not allowed to call boys. This one lasted until the end of high school.
I was allowed to stay out later than she was, too.
There was no place, where gender roles were more prevalent than in sports while I was growing
up. Coaches, parents, and peers had a large influence in this context. Coaches have a tremendous
influence on kids, and gender roles are driven into young athletes? heads. There were always those
girls who would play like boys and they were referred to as ?tomboys.? The girls who did not
conform to the gender roles were looked at negatively. Boys who did not play hard or weren?t good
athletes were called
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8. Gender Roles Essay
Gender Roles
Women and men have extremely different roles in society. These gender roles are very evident in
the way we see ourselves as women, which is based on how we have been treated in the past and
the actions in history we have taken toward gender equality. Katha Pollitt expresses her feminist
view in her work "Why boys don't play with dolls."
"Instead of looking at kids to "prove" that differences in behavior by sex are innate, we can look at
the ways we raise kids as an index to how unfinished the feminist revolution really is, and how
tentatively it is embraced even by adults who fully expect their daughters to enter previously
male–dominated professions and their sons to change...show more content...
Scott Russell Sanders brings forth to his male point of view concerning the sensations of guilt and
shame over their persecution of women in "The Men We Carry in Our Minds…and How They
Differ from the Real Lives of Most Men." He says to a friend of his "This must be a hard time for
women, they have so many paths to choose from, and so many voices calling them." He also says
growing up he really envied women because they got to do things like; shop, visit neighbors, and
run errands. Sanders goes on to explain… " I didn't see, then, what a prison a house could
be…I did not realize, because such things were never spoken of–how women suffered from
men's bullying."
Being a modern woman is definitely a double–edged sword and has many complexities. Feminism
has taught us, that as women we are equal to men and we must demand and fight for that equality,
while the influence of gender roles makes us demand chivalry from men. We expect the same high
paying jobs as men; yet we demand that men do things like open doors for us. This could be
viewed as the result of many issues, but it all boils down to one simple concept: respect or actually
lack of respect. Throughout history we as women have been put into many roles–the homemaker, the
bad driver, the weak ones, and
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