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Gender Inequality: The Social Roles Of Gender

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What is gender? Gender refers to the personal sexual identity of an individual, regardless of the person's biological and outward sex. Depending on the individual’s background and culture, how people outline masculinity and femininity can vary (Cherry, 2014).

Gender is socially constructed. This refers to how we categories males and females into two sharply distinct groups. We educate boys and girls to behave differently, dress differently, offer them different activities and opportunities, and emphasise gender to them as a socially important category (Kane, 2012). Whether we disagree with the social roles associated with our gender, we tend to act in the way our gender roles expect us to, consequently avoiding social costs. These processes constrain both female and males, socially constructing a strict binary of two highly distinct categories and guiding people into one or the other (Kane, 2012). Generally speaking, this process constrains girls and women more so than boys and men. One example we see in present day is that women would earn less then men globally. This also reinforces gender differentiation in households when couples that become parents often ‘choose’ to have the female parent take time off to mind their child due to her lower wages (Kane, 2012). On the other hand, although gender inequalities advantage boys and men in many ways, scholars have found …show more content…

They understand that a child’s sex is unaffected by the clothing a child wears or the toys a child likes (Kail and Cavanaugh, 2008).

According to the above, children begin learning about gender roles after they have overcome gender constancy. As children comprehend gender constancy their understanding of gender roles becomes more flexible. They agree that it’s ok for boys to play with dolls and girls to play with cars (Kail and Cavanaugh,

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