Gender Roles And Gender Identity: A Conceptual Analysis

Gender roles can be defined as the behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing cultural norms. Gender roles still influence modern thoughts even after the woman’s rights movement and still appear and impact daily life. There are numerous sides to gender roles, including; men's and women's stereotypes and norms, the pros and cons, and how it can be fixed. As Ostrovsky stated in her article, “we have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much,”. In literature as in life, the theme of gender roles exists.

In "Learning to Be Gendered", Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet argues that the gender identification does not begin at birth. The dichotomy between a male and a female in biology is what sets them apart. The authors address the false assumptions with gender identification for people who think they figured out the pattern for boys and girls. The article gives examples of instances where parents and adults have unconsciously made judgments for males and females based on their expectations and roles. As a result, boys have learned to perform as a male and girls have learned to perform as a female.

Society has identify an image into the understanding of people of how the role/ job of each gender should be presented as. The two recognized types of gender are a man and a woman, although there are numerous types of gender roles a man or a woman must play to be accepted by the society. The way one should behave and act are mostly attributed to by their gender according to the society. Many people think of gender as the physical features of a woman and a man, but it is not just about the physical features it’s beyond that.

Unlike ‘sex’, which typically refers to the biological and physiological differences, gender is a sociological concept that describes the social and cultural constructions that is associated with one’s sex (Giddens & Sutton, 2013, p. 623-667). The constructed (or invented) characteristics that defines gender is an ongoing process that varies between societies and culture and it can change over time. For example, features that are overly masculine in one culture can be seen as feminine in another; however, the relation between the two should not be seen as static. Gender socialization is thought to be a major explanation for gender differences, where children adhere to traditional gender roles from different agencies of socialization. Gender

Investigating how we are socialized in regards to gender is interesting because it is such a broad topic on how society characterizes everyone by gender. The biological categories of gender strongly influence the social dynamics of gender (Conley 281). Gender matters because it structures relations between people, but as gender structures relation it does this on unequal ground.

The development of roles for men and women falls down to their gender roles which their qualities and characteristics that society describes them as each sex. Yes, people are born female or male but over time society helps them to become women and men. In class we talked about how society has its “ideas” on what the different gender roles should look like. Men need to be the head provider for a family, they need to work a full time job and provide for his family. A women has responsibilities and that is to maintain the household, raise the children and always prepare food for her family. Different cultures have different gender roles and other factors can also determine what the female and male gender roles should look like.

If there is a group of men who are rolling strollers in a park, are we going to eyeball them if they are a group of women? For the reason that nurturing a child has always been considered the mission of the mother in previous centuries, the concept of men being full-time caregivers is still new in this society. With the shifting of gender role away from the gender norm, the society is slowly recognizing their contribution, but this change is still unacceptable in some cultures. Regard the society’s belief, more and more men are willing to stay home as househusbands. The population of househusband has doubled in the last ten years, approximately 7 million, which equals to 32 percent of married fathers, according to Athomedad.org. These men call

Gender is all around us. Like water surrounding creatures in the sea, we are often unaware of its ever-present nature. Gender is actually taught to us from the moment we are born. Gender expectations and messages bombard us constantly. Upbringing, culture, peers, schools, community, media, and religion are some of the many influences that shape our understanding of this core aspect of self. How you learned and interacted with gender as a young child directly influences how you view the world today. Gendered interactions between parent and child begin as soon as the sex of the baby is known. In short, many aspects of gender are socially constructed, particularly with regard to gender expression.

Gender roles, also known as gender stereotypes, are social and cultural norms on how females and males should conduct themselves within a society. Every culture has certain roles both genders are expected to follow. An example of this in traditional American culture is a man becoming a doctor while a female becomes a nurse or men being the hard workers and women being stay at home mothers. Gender development researchers, similar to other developmental researchers, focus on questions of change over time in gender related subjects (Ruble and Martin 1988). Research suggest that children are socialized to understand gender stereotypes at an early age. In fact, a study done in 2006 by indicated that children before 3 years of age understand concrete

When I was born I was wrapped in a pink blanket and bow was slapped on my head. I guess this is some sort of a symbol for the gender roles that were going to encase my life, but that's a bit pretentious for my taste. In all reality though I was never given a say in my gender, I was labeled as a girl whatever that meant from the moment I was given my first pink blanket. I was also given a set of expectations of what a girl was supposed to be, in my culture. The same thing was happening to all the babies born in that hospital that day with me, the babies with male genitalia were given blue blankets and a different set of expectations. Due to the expectations society has developed for each biological sex, gender has become a social construct.

As children develop through childhood and into adulthood, they are constantly exposed to factors that affect the formation of their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors while defining their identities (YI-CHING & BILLINGHAM, 2014). Society has many cultural norms for gender identity. Gender refers to the behaviors that a culture deems appropriate for men and women (Matsumoto & Juang, 2013, p. 156). Growing up I was raised in the era of the traditional family, where the female was considered the keeper of the home. I watched my mother do all the cooking, housework, and raising of my sister and me. My father was the provider who at times worked three jobs to keep food on the table. Since my family only consisted of girls my father did not deem it appropriate to teach us how to take care of yardwork, home improvements, or car maintenance. It seemed that my sister and I were all set to become homemakers for our own families, but as much as society said that women were to be the cooks I hate to cook. My mother would spend hours preparing meals and baking, while I found the whole process boring and a waste of time.

Society has made a clear distinction that there are some behaviors and responsibilities designated to specific genders. Although the line between genders has blurred over time, gender expectation is very much still in place. For me growing up, my mother was my role model, as a woman she taught me what my responsibilities and behaviors should be. Along with my mother, the media has also helped to reinforce gender distinctions.

As society has grown and has shaped from the beginning of time, the difference between gender, sex, and identity has not become such a well-known issue until recently. Most people do not realize the difference between gender and sex; Sex is biological while gender is based on the social role of the person. The biggest part that society has to realize is that everyone's gender identity, a person's perception of having a particular gender, which may or may not correspond with their birth sex, is personal and varies from person to person. The idea of girls being girls and boys being boys and never “switching” is an older way of thinking that does not work in the modern society we have today. Gender roles, the role or behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing cultural norms, are starting to change; Women used to have to stay home and care for the home and children but women today are more powerful than ever and hold very important jobs while men have taken on more household responsibilities.

Gender roles are rapidly developing during this time period in one’s life; already having a sense of self identification, childhood is the most vulnerable stage for stereotypes to adapt, gender-typed behavior patterns to develop and gender appropriate activities to begin to come into play (Sigelman, 372). When applying gender roles to myself, I thought about how gender roles shaped myself as well as my friends. Factors such as culture, hobbies, peers, family and social structure setting all played a part in molding me into the person who i was and who i became today. Gender roles is often a topic that receives little attention and is one that is not frequently discussed in a public setting. I took it upon myself to bring up this discussion to my friends both males and females and asked what impact gender roles had on them as

And they start to prepare its arrival depending on which sex the baby is. The article questions the audience, “Does knowing all this makes a difference on how the parents treat the child?” Scientists are concerned about when and how do the children start to act according to their gender. The late 1960’s to 1970’s had been a turning point for the gender identification. For example, during this time period, women got the right to go out and work. The article states that, “Chronologically, another important contribution was Maccoby and Jacklin’s (1974) book, The Psychology of Sex Differences. This book presented an unparalleled synthesis of research findings on gender differences in development” (para. 9). It highlights that within-gender differences are often larger than those between the genders (a point still lost in many of the popularized beliefs held today) (Para. 9). This quote explains that the way a girl or a boy looks at the opposite gender, may not be the way the opposite gender looks at itself. It is not always what you think. Due to this reason, the book was challenging for them as it presented the idea about how the genders are different, without having any idea about how the people would react on it after having it read, as during that time a girl’s personality was the same in everyone’s views. The text further