Gender And Gender Roles

In today’s society, most families consist of both parents working and with that comes the conflict of shared childcare, nurturing and shared household responsibility. Since the day of old, it was and always has been the mothers’ responsibility to care for the child and the home. To cook, clean, feed the children and attend to the husband's needs. Of course, this concept also depending on the culture of which the couple was brought up on (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Harmon Hanson, 2015).

When a person is born, they are either male or female. Before they are born, their parents are going to set goals and expectations for them. Sometimes parents will name their child after a famous celebrity hoping they will be just as great as them. Each gender will have different ways they should live their life in order to stay within their gender role. Some will meet the expectations and other will not. That does not make them look less of their gender, they will just be expected to meet them. Over the years, some gender roles have submerged and others have risen above. They will be able to show how the gender roles are supposed to be in jobs, education, and marriage and also how they can benefit from stepping out of the gender roles.

The division of labor in the household hold depends on the environment. Society creates gender ideology that affects the roles women and men take on in the household. In The Second Shift by Arlie Russell, she states three different ideologies of gender. There is the traditional, transitional and egalitarian ideology that determines what sphere men and women want to identify with, home sphere or work sphere. However, it depends what kind on the time period and society you live in that determines the "norm" gender ideology, which affects the division of labor in a household. The society, which affected the Mendoza and Ortega family that I have observed and interviewed, constructs views of the appropriate

In many shops, there seems to be an obvious separation between boys and girls items, for example, the birthday cards, books, clothes, and toys. This is shown in a variety of ways the boy's items are mainly the color blue and the books have pictures of either action figures, superheroes or tools. Whereas the girl's items are mainly the color pink. The books show pictures of fairies, princess, and Bratz. The cards also have the theme of the color pink for girls and blue for boys. The girl's cards have a lot of sparkles and pretty pictures whereas the boy's cards are covered in camo kind of illustrations and also have action figures on the covers. The children's clothes are separated into sections where there are labels for the boy's clothes and labels for the girl's clothes. The girl's clothing is all pretty and pink, it is covered in sparkles. Whereas boys clothing has camo patterns, blue colors, and pictures of action figures.

In present day all around the world, society has certain expectations for the actions and behaviors of males and females. There are many factors in our everyday lives that contribute to the gender norms that society has set. This essay will discuss how situations in life can play a part in how people treat other people based on their gender. It is believed that males are the leaders of our world, but in present day woman can do as much as men can do. From The Journal of Marriage and Family, Hu states, “Differentiated gender roles in adulthood are rooted in one’s gender role socialization. In order to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the domestic sphere, we need to examine the gendered patterns of children’s housework time.”(2015, P.1). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females that they must be taught. These roles define how females and males are viewed in society, their household, and workplace. In The Journal of Sports behavior by Hardin, he states, “Although gender role differences from biological and “Natural” exists in popular consciousness, research has long demonstrated that instead, many are long time socially constructed… Individuals understand their gender because they are given names and treated in particular ways, such as dress in pink for girls and blue for boys, that reflect social construction of gender. Bandura's social cognitive theory is key in understanding the factors in socialization”(2009, P.3). Bandura's theory of of social cognition is that behavior, environmental events, and cognitive factors are the main keys that shape attitudes and actions of an individual. Although, gender roles play a very big part in our society, specific genders are treated differently while dealing with peer influence, media influence, as well as employment.

Within a household, women and men, mothers and fathers, have different roles and responsibilities, much of which are based on the person’s gender. Typically, women or mothers are “responsible for the emotional, social, and physical well-being of her family” (Lober 80), “most of the hands-on family work” (Lorber 81), and keep up of the house. The men or fathers are usually seen as the “bread winners” of the family. Due to this and the work they do outside of the house, men usually have little to no responsibilities to the family and within the home. It is not unusual for women to clean the house, make sure the children are well taken care of, and cook while the man, or father, is at work. When he gets back home, after work, it is expected for him to relax and unwind. Although they are a couple with similar obligations, the divide of them is not equally distributed among the two and offer either one different results.

"When, husbands take on household responsibility, they typically choose tasks that do not threaten their masculine self-images ( Weingarten ,1978; Yogev, 1981)" (Biernet & Wortman, 1991). Women have to be a jack-of-all trades, they have to go to work, clean house, drive the children to school, get them ready for bed, and get up to do it all over

As a result of the increase of pregnancy rates in the 1950s there was a decrease of employment. Instead of going to work, mothers cared for their children at homes. This reinforced the roles of women as wives and mothers. Today, women are now more liberated from these roles. That being the case Author Natalie Angier, of the article, “The Changing American Family, explains, 62 percent of the public, and 72 percent of adults under 30, view the ideal marriage as one in which husband and wife both work and share child care and household duties…” This quote demonstrates that majority of women are no longer the housemakers of the family. The twenty-first century women are through with stereo gender jobs and proved to be a family's breadwinner. In the 1950s, Author Brigid Schulte, of the article, “Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today,” points out, “....in the 1950s, 65 percent of all children under 15 were being raised in traditional breadwinner-homemaker families. Today, only 22 percent are.” This quote supports the belief that both husbands and wives should share the responsibilities of supporting their families with financial income and responsibilities in the

It is a better situation for everyone if the husband earns the money and the wife is at home cooking, cleaning, shopping and caring for the children as she waits for her husband to come home each day. Now that your attention is on this analysis of gender roles and before any blood is spilled, that statement was the expectation of family life until World War II. Men held the sole responsibility for providing the income for a family prior to the war. Men left as soldiers fighting a war and came home to a new world of changes they could not have ever thought possible. Women took jobs normally reserved for men which set the wheels in motion for equality in the workplace. When women found their place in the workforce our society has been changing fast over the years since WWII, male gender roles of the past became outdated and many say are changing for the better. The gender role changes in the way a family was defined created a whole new era for men to search who they were expected to be, but change has not come easy.

Division of labor of the home is regarded in many different ways. Willingly taking on their assigned roles, numerous families abide by these assignments, still; other marriages want more equality in this division of household chores. A lot of these tasks can be strenuous and demanding. The responsibilities that come with these daily routines can also be life threatening if not carefully performed. A few of the duties in the day-to-day trade of maintaining a household include things such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. Division of labor among races is also different. Cultures influence how these roles will be assigned and completed. First traditional Mexican American women take on the household chores with great pride.

Societies today are highly affected by the way people are believed to act. Gender roles are created by society, and they are a way to define how a gender should or shouldn't act. In “Answers” by George Singleton, there is a husband and wife thinking about getting divorced, and they begin answering questions in a book, and realize that the other turned out to be less manly or trustworthy, than they believed to be. In “Public Relations” by George Singleton, a man and his wife are out eating with his boss and his wife. While eating he gets fired for talking about how women should act, and how they will amount to nothing without an education. In both of these stories, men and women act differently than the stereotypes put on them by their

all housework. Now in a modern family both husband and wife are equal; they share household

Gender socialization often begins early once parents are shown the sex of their child; from then on, baby showers are planned according to gender “appropriate” colors, which are often pink for girls and blue for boys. Even differences in how children are spoke to can be picked up easily in Western cultures. Girls are called pretty and sweet, whereas boys are handsome and strong. Ultimately, the way children learn to identify with their gender culture is in part due to not only family and friends, media, schools, and religion, but also from the toys that may inexplicitly advertise gender expectations. Gender-typed toys may be bought for children as a way for parents to encourage and reinforce gender-appropriate behaviors. However, recent debates have engulfed toy manufacturers and major retailers, which has brought about changes in toy design and marketing in an effort to make reflect more realistic and gender neutral options.

The core responsibility of a family depends on both the man and the woman. This also varies depending on the family. In my opinion, I would expect both genders o take equal responsibility. The feminine gender is mostly associated with the child care activities and the house chores while the Masculine gender is associated with the providing for the family and helping the feminine gender. In as much as there will be

I was married twice before and I am currently married to my third husband. Although, we are married, he has become recently retired and I am still a working member of the family. We have two children that reside in the home with us. Our roles have reversed in some ways. We both worked full-time and maintained the household, but with his retirement he has taken over some of the responsibilities of the house. He will get our youngest child off to school in the mornings, make sure that the oldest is off to his job on time, and he cooks and cleans the house while everyone is away. This reversal is unheard of in many societies in the U.S. or in other countries. Many males would feel inferior in this role. Working class status has demonstrated in the past that men work and provide for their households not the women.