Gender Roles
Introduction
Gender roles are an expectation of society on how people are supposed to conduct themselves in dressing, speaking, and acting. There are gender role expectations in every community. However, they are different from one society to the other and can change over time. Gender roles are associated with stereotypes in which a general judgment concerns a person or a group that is not always accurate. Unfair and unequal treatment to people about their gender may result from gender roles stereotypes. Gender stereotypes can be exaggerated, leading to a hard life for people. Extreme gender stereotypes are harmful because they do not allow people to express themselves fully together with their emotions. Notably, gender roles are represented in different disciplines, including social science discipline, applied science discipline, diversity framework, and self-reflection.
Social Science Discipline
Social science involves the study of humans and their relationship to society. It is concerned with the development and structural patterns of society. Gender is a concept that human beings create socially through different environments and interactions with one another. Additionally, it depends mostly on the biological differences between males and females. Gender is also viewed as a social construction since human beings create gender socially (Warin, 2019). Social gender construction is presented because individuals, groups, and society have particular characteristics and values to other individuals due to their sex, which differs from different communities and cultures over time. Gender is a division and a social valuation of masculinity and femininity, whereby the biological division of sex parallels gender.
Men and women are expected to occupy the gender roles according to their sex. In society, women are believed to be more nurturing than men, and therefore the view of feminine gender traditionally expects women to behave in a nurturing way. An example in which the feminine gender should engage in nurturing is taking care of the family and performing all the home duties. Men are seen by society as leaders, and this is according to the traditional views of gender roles (Vladimirova & Habeck, 2018). According to these roles, men should be heads of their households and provide financing to their families and make essential decisions. Gender roles in society have been highly supported for the past few years since different views give various perspectives on gender roles. A biological perspective on gender roles suggests that women have a natural affinity towards the feminine gender role, while men have a genuine relationship with the masculine gender.
Applied Science Discipline
Gender is a socio-cultural construct of male and female identities that determine and influence how people live and manage their vicinity together with the ones around them. Gender is natural and can also be learned directly or indirectly from the society. Gender roles are perceived as behavioral norms and patterns associated with males and females in society in a particular social group. Femininity and masculinity occur comparatively concerning each other, and they both depend on one another. Notably, media has been a source of influence on society by stimulating gender norms, making it one of the most prominent parts of gender socialization. Gender roles bring about multiple social science theories in applied science.
The different powers levels that men and women hold in the society link the feminist perspective that gender roles are not merely the ideas about appropriate behavior for males and females. It is true that when a marriage dissolves, women are at a high risk of facing poverty because men are expected to be those primary breadwinners of their families. At this point, it is evident that men tend to hold more power in their marriages than women. Men are less likely to lose control or social status when their marriage dissolves. Men and women are expected to perform different tasks and work on different roles based on their gender. Many organizations operate from a perspective that favors traditional beliefs about gender roles (Pascall & Lewis, 2020). For instance, they offer parental leave benefits to mothers, which is also an opportunity denied to their fathers. The traditional perspective remains predominant in many corporations whereby every position held by men and women is determined by gender.
Diversity Framework
Diversity of gender roles is experienced in different sectors of life. Workplace gender diversity is essential since misunderstandings and disagreements concerning sex differences occur due to neglecting the energy needed to achieve it. Regardless of the continued substantial unequal gender ration in the different workplaces, some initiatives are controversial and lead to mistreatment of members of dominant groups. The concerns on how workplace gender diversity works s founded on an inaccurate view of women being different from men regarding their thinking capacity, behavior, and feelings.
Familiarity with the nature of sex differences, together with vocational behavior and outcomes, helps understand the complications that occur in workplace gender diversity. When the causes are understood, one can make greater workplace gender diversity and the benefits associated with it. For organizations to have a fair workplace, gender diversity should be good governance on innovation, occupational well-being, and firm performance. Employment repercussion is significantly evident in organizations between the sexes when females become pregnant, which creates a physical difference between the two genders (Endendijk et al., 2017). The tiring work done by women requires a lot of strength.
Occupational health and safety recommendations seek to reduce reliance on physical strength to improve the health and safety recommendations and prevent injuries. In modern industrialization working areas, the physical difference is a critical factor. Moreover, there is a lot of sex discrimination that is experienced in different workplaces. Leaders should ensure there is equal access to leadership positions. It helps in reducing barriers to women accessing the many goods of paid work. A societal expectation of having the existence of discrimination law is essential for organizations since they have to play their part and ensure that workplace sex does not undermine its objectives.
Self-Reflection
Before researching this topic, I perceived gender roles as a fascinating topic since the way people view things is that gender issues affect people’s different situations, leading to a negative feeling of why they believe in sexes and how they are. According to my research, human beings are always determined to have a youthful appearance. Men and women need to grow up while developing a self-determining character that is accompanied by gender roles. It is undeniable that society should think that gender roles are the way they are because my experience led me to understand that the distinction between male and female has departed from the society (Warin, 2019). According to scholars, the current society affirms that males and females should have full behavioral and emotional skills, which is achieved by treating them with traditional gender roles and beliefs from their parents.
Different characteristics in gender roles are primarily portrayed by the parents so that they need one to behave in a certain way. The use of gendered positions created by different systems of different systems robust leads powerful men to produce good ideas. Males and females are victims of gender structure in various institutions of society. The self-reflection taught me how people share their gender ideas in a relationship despite one trying to stop doing it. It also helped me understand how men and women interact in a way that brings about gender structure. The research has helped me develop a gender perspective and view it differently.
Stereotypes and gender biases present in people’s cultures are viewed in different criteria, including analysis from a male perspective, the existence of personal characteristics, and behavioral as the basis of sexual differentiation argument. Gender always plays a role differently to men and women according to their other status (Olsson & Martiny, 2018). I learned that gender explains labor division between sexes since reproduction is on a unique biological difference between both genders. Gender is culture-specific since tasks and labor division do not relate to the sex of the individuals concerned. Since culture evolves, it has to vary over time, making societies more complex. Therefore the roles that are played by men and women are determined by both cultures together with political and economic factors.
Conclusion
Many cultures exist in the world, and most of them have their gender roles and norms. Most people are brought up with deferent stereotypes. The classifications made on gender are passed from one generation to another. Specific characteristics to certain genders are learned unknowingly from early childhood due to the environment they grow up in. There is a significant number of stereotypes in societies, but they will continue when it ends them. Gender classification should be completed to reach the society’s goals and objectives of bringing out gender equity. For a society to achieve gender equality, stereotypes and norms should be eliminated.
References
Endendijk, J. J., Groeneveld, M. G., van der Pol, L. D., van Berkel, S. R., Hallers‐Haalboom, E. T., Bakermans‐Kranenburg, M. J., & Mesman, J. (2017). Gender differences in child aggression: Relations with gender‐differentiated parenting and parents’ gender‐role stereotypes. Child development, 88(1), 299-316.
Olsson, M., & Martiny, S. E. (2018). Does exposure to counterstereotypical role models influence girls’ and women’s gender stereotypes and career choices? A review of social psychological research. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2264.
Pascall, G., & Lewis, J. (2020). Emerging gender regimes and policies for gender equality in a wider Europe. Journal of social policy, 33(3).
Schroeder, J. E., & Borgerson, J. L. (2015). Critical visual analysis of gender: Reactions and reflections. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(15-16), 1723-1731.
Vladimirova, V., & Habeck, J. O. (2018). Introduction: Feminist approaches and the study of gender in Arctic social sciences. Polar Geography, 41(3), 145-163.
Warin, J. (2019). Conceptualizing the value of male practitioners in early childhood education and care gender balance or gender flexibility. Gender and Education, 31(3), 293-308.