The Importance Of Gender Roles

Introduction

Gender roles are defined as societal rules or rather norms that define behavior in both male and female gender. These roles are considered to be appropriate, acceptable in the society or desirable to all. These roles are based on sex or perceived sexuality. Femininity and masculinity always set basis of what we consider as gender roles in the society. There are those roles that are associated with the male gender and others associated to the female gender. There are also those roles that cannot be differentiated with a certainty between male and female gender. Roles are different from one culture to another but here are those that are uniform in almost all cultures. There are those roles that are perceived to be biologically created and others that are socially created. The socially created roles are in most cases variant depending on cultural norms of different culture while biological constructed roles are in most cases uniform in most cultures.

Feminist movements have criticized certain gender based roles that are seen to be oppressive to the female gender. For example, female gender in most cultures are associated with baby sitting and doing all the household chores. During their young age in African continents for example, girls are subjected to help their mothers at home while the boy child goes to school. This is in contravention with the rights of girls to education and it widens the level of inequality between male and female gender in the society.