Essay On Femininity And Masculinity

Despite inequity, there is a myriad of comparable traits that are shared by humans which portrays our personality. It is in one's power to decide whether or not to conform to society. Indeed both texts include many similarities and differences such as the stereotypical roles set on each gender, their search for individuality and their desired privileges. While approaching adulthood, many people encounter obstacles which lead their understanding to a fact that gender stereotypes do not only occur for women but, for men as well. The narrator in Boys and Girls discovers the societies’ views and expectations of her.

From the social and cultural expectations for a man and the manner and degree to which he acknowledges and lives up to them we derive the concept of masculinity; those applicable to a woman, together with her compliance with them, we think of as femininity. While masculinity and femininity are often assumed to be natural results of being male or female, there is no necessary connection between the morphology of sex (male or female) and the combination of behaviour and attitude that is defined as gender (masculinity or femininity). Masculinity and femininity are thus cultural products, though society ensures through a number of measures that its members believe in and subscribe to a natural connection between sex and gender in order to stabilize the binary system. The consequence is a naturalization of these expectations for typical masculine and feminine behaviour; they appear to us as natural and universally true, even though, as I have already pointed out, this is not the

Themes in Literature - Gender roles Gender roles are norms created by society. Our gender is given to us when born, either you are a girl or a boy, decided by how our body looks like. A girl is given norms to follow by society at a young age. A girl should usually be passive, nurturing and subordination, while those born male are supposed to be strong, aggressive and dominant. This paper will discuss how the genders are viewed and perceived in different literary periods.

Goffman defines “Institutional reflexivity” as the extent to which society takes the biological differences between males and females into account for every aspect of daily life (1977: 302). This means that although there is only minor differences between men and women, as a society, we have normalized the idea the two are polar opposites, and need to grow up in a way that reflects that. Cultivators are parents feel as if they are responsible for reproducing gendered expectations for their children. They believe gender is created socially, and because of this they do whatever they can to enforce this expectations upon their children, which little regard of what society will think of their parenting strategy ( 2012: 11-12).

This was a very important thing Tannen did because to help someone the need to be aware of the problem first. Tannen starts off by stating that men and women learn their different styles of communication as children. When they are kids, they form a group for boys and a group for girls, and the two groups get close to one another but through different ways. One example of the differences is “Little girls create and maintain relationships through sharing secrets and conversation…. But bonds between boys are based less on talking, but more on doing

In the article, “Boys vs. Girls: Who’s Harder to Raise”, on Parenting.com, by Paula Spencer, the author looks at differences in gender in specific categories, in determining who is more difficult to raise. The author makes generalizations about boys and girls behavior based on her own personal experiences and challenges of raising boys and girls. She focuses specifically on differences in discipline, physical safety, communication, self-esteem and schooling. For each category, she states which gender is harder to raise.

Some may say that too much pressure for youths can leave a negative impact on them. On the other hand, by learning how to cope with the tension and criticism from supportive coaches and teammates, kids can persevere through these problems and grow stronger mentally. In addition, kids learn problem-solving skills that may help them surpass obstacles in their later lives (Website). Children tend to depend on the knowledge of others to figure out problems for them. When I tried wrestling for the first time, competing on the mat all by myself was very anxious and daunting.

The sight of a girl playing with the boys can unfold bravery. Girls can get underestimated in sports, until they take it to the game. Even though some people think that girls shouldn 't play sports with boys, I think they should because they are just as strong as men, so they should be treated the same, and they should get just as much fame on a boy 's team. Some people may think that girls shouldn’t be allowed to play on boys’ sport teams because usually, the main argument is that boys are physically stronger. According to Sabrina Victor, “Even though some girls in middle school and high school are good enough to play with the boys, we still shouldn’t let them because these girls are the best players for girls ' sports programs.

From birth, children learn gender stereotypes and roles from their parents and environment. In a traditional view, males learn to manipulate their physical and social environment through physical strength or dexterity, while girls learn to present themselves as objects to be viewed. Social constructionists claim for example that gender-segregated children 's activities create the appearance that gender differences in behavior reflect an essential nature of male and female behavior. Gender role theory “treats these differing distributions of women and men into roles as the primary origin of sex-differentiated social behavior, their impact on behavior is mediated by psychological and social processes” According to Gilbert, gender roles arose from correspondent inference, meaning that general labor division was extended to gender roles. Socially constructed gender roles are considered to be hierarchical and characterized as a male-advantaged gender hierarchy by social constructionists.

Gender roles are built on gender norms, or standards, which are rooted in cultural perceptions or based on societal expectations. In many societies, masculine roles are associated with strength, aggression and dominance whilst female roles are associated with subordination, nurturing and passivity. Men and women are expected to adhere to these roles. Gender is a learned behavior. From infancy, children are encouraged to adopt behaviours associated with the gender they are “assigned” at birth (based on their physical sex).