Gender Role Socialization - Essay Samples

What is gender role

Gender roles are a sense to society. There are a lot of duties that different people of distinct sexes perform. However, in the last fifty years, there were a little bit different ways of achieving gender roles. Mainly, women had their particular fields and men also. It was hard to find a man doing a position that the society believed affiliated it to women. That is why we have a lot of drastic changes when it comes to defining gender roles. Previously, women engaged in reproductive activities like staying in homes and taking care of children. They would only participate in house chores that were socially perceived to be simple. They had no voice in their homes. For example, men would do anything that they felt was right according to them and women would not question merely because they are females. Finding unmarried women in those days was hard. The society made the people believe that women cannot survive without men and that is why it was an obligation to get married. Additionally, women were to stay in their marriages even if they were abusive. It is entirely different at the moment because there are many cases where women we have single parents because they were in abusive relationships and they decided to walk out.

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On the same note, the perception of men being providers changed because the society embraced educating girl child that led to financial freedom. They can no longer rely on men but instead, they have the professions that they earn money, and they can settle their bills appropriately. Education in those days was for the boy child, and that is why they led the big companies in business fields and also in the political arena. There were fewer cases of women being in leadership, but in these days we have vocal women who led lobby groups, and they try to advocate for gender equality. There was a belief that women in politics are morally bent and they are competing with their men which were wrong. We have men who endorse women to run in the political seat like in the recent case where Barack Obama supported Hillary Clinton to vie as president of United States of America.

The prestigious careers in engineering was a male-dominated field, and no women were in those areas. Courses like hospitality and management were left for the ladies because they stereotyped the whole profession. There were no women in the military during those days. However, currently, there are a lot of changes because there are women across those courses that people believed were for males. Men at the same time have decided to take the classes in catering and hotels that were a no-go zones in last fifty years. Lastly, in homes there are no more cases of patriarchy, both men and women take up the duties without violating anyone either male or female. Both men and women have an education which leaves everyone on fair ground, and there is no need to worry about the roles. People perform duties regarding professionalism not gender-wise.

Definition of gender roles

Over the last 50 years, there have been a lot of developments in the social sector. Specifically, the demographic factors that have been affected include gender. The most significant revolutions are those about gender roles. During this period, the responsibilities of both men and women have transformed. The reasons for this are in line with survival for the changing social, economic and political needs. This essay explains the nature, type, causes, and impacts of the changes.

Focusing on the roles of women, there have been significant changes in comparison to men. Fifty years ago, the sole responsibility of women was to attend to tasks at home. This included preparing food and doing household chores. Based on this, the ultimate success for a girl was to get married and start s family. Being a housewife was common and thus implied that women had no powers outside the confines of their own homes (Lindsey, 2015). For this reason, the number of women who attended institutions of higher learning was very few in comparison to male counterparts. The women were dependent on their husbands for the provision of daily needs. Over the years, changes arose as the women started attending schools to learn the skills to compete for the jobs previously dominated by men. The laws enforced favored such developments as the women were encouraged to pursue professional goals (Lindsey, 2015).

With education, some jobs became dedicated to the women, and this implied that they had a way of earning their wages. This took the bread-winner title from the men, and the responsibility became a shared one. In the same case, the task of nurturing children was embraced even by the men due to the need to support their wives in pursuing careers. Fifty years ago, fathers were meant to be the hard-working breadwinners and at the same time, to be feared by their children. This is because they did not take active roles in the development of the children but instead, only came in to instill discipline. The changes in the law forced this situation to take a turn.

50 years has been a long time in the gender equality reforms. It is now common for women to do chores that were reserved for men and vice versa. The main reason as to why women were motivated to go to work was the fact that it was hard for a family to live on the salary of one person. At the same time, daycare institutions helped a lot in the development of female careers. The changes in roles also apply to the domestic labor (Lindsey, 2015).

It is possible to conclude that the laws and policies formulated favor the reversal of roles. The roles of women have been highlighted more than that of men because they have been victims of oppression and discrimination. The fact, however, is that the world has embraced the females and most countries have regulations for a certain percentage of the workforce to consist of women. With the revolutions over the past fifty years, it would not be a surprise if there were many female leaders in the next 50 years.

References

Lindsey, L. L. (2015). Gender roles: A sociological perspective. Routledge.