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Gender Roles And Heterosexuality Essay

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Gender Roles and heterosexuality
Gender has played a major role since the beginning of time, dictating how individuals should act within society. Gender is a fabricated concept which is shaped and brought forward by various institutions, such as the media, religion, culture and other systems. These hugely influential gender roles are so deeply rooted in individuals that they are accepted as social norms and standards that are rarely questioned (Johnson and Repta). According to Trier-Bieniek and Leavy (n.d), gender is the certain expectations of how femininity and masculinity should be acted out based on people 's assigned biological gender. When men and women enter into a heterosexual relationship, their gender roles are at play and sexual scripts need to be upheld over time in order to continue following the social expectation. The media plays one of the biggest roles in disseminating the ideals of feminine and masculine identity and thus holds much influence over society and its actions.

Female gender roles and the media
Traditional female role expectations, such as being mothers and homemakers are being met by more modern ideals of attaining achievement as part of the feminist movement. According to Halberstam (2013), women have achieved economically to the point of being the main bread winners within many households. …show more content…

An example of the female interruption of desire and the male 's free flow of it (Halberstam, 2013) can be seen in many popular magazines, such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour. Magazines aimed at women focus primarily on discussing gossip, clothing, food and boys/men. Women are given advice on how to achieve the perfect body and how to get the perfect man, while operating within constraints of sexual expression, such as articles on "10 ways to please your man." (Halberstam) Men 's desire, on the other hand, is encouraged from a young age. Men are taught to direct their desire at women and to indulge in it, pornography being a prime example

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