Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, and nonfiction, once said, “The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be. Rather than how we are.” Otherwise stated, Adichie delinates the correspondence between societies beliefs and one's own thought. When generalizations about gender attributes are placed, the gender schemas are related to what really defines masculinity and femininity. This idea of “gender” or “sex” as either male or female, is only based on their genitals. Once the sex of the baby is assigned, parents presume the child's gender. As the child grows it begins to understand what culture and their ethnicity means to them. A number of perspectives illustrate that culture can conflict societies …show more content…
In many cultures or religions a woman's role is to stay at home and be in charge of taking care of the family. This gives the woman the power of the household. When reading the article “As Gender Roles Change, Are Men Out Of Step” by CBS news reporter Susan Spencer, she brings up the idea that if a man does not have a woman who can take care of the household chores, he is not as successful. Its seems like woman have to do a lot with a man's successfulness. Men are lucky to have such a great support system. With this in mind what would happen if the men stayed at home and the women were the ones at work? The news reporter Susan Spencer from the CBS news wrote an article called “As Gender Roles Change, Are Men Out Of Step?” stating that, "Overall I think that for women to contribute economically is a good thing for men," Mundy said. "It gives men within marriage more choices. They don't necessarily have to go into a career they are not interested in just to be the breadwinner, just to be the wage earner. They’re not going to be judged simply on their ability to generate a salary." In other words, it gives a man another perspective of who they can, be another purpose. But how would this affect their their cultural beliefs and identity? It seems that many cultures may not agree with this and that identity wise it would give people the wrong impressions of who the man truly is. The way this should be looked at is how the men can do what a woman usually does and how a woman can do what a man usually
To begin, I think it is important to analyze the difference between “sex” and “gender”. Up until researching for this paper, I though that the two terms were interchangeable in meaning, rather, they are separate ideas that are connected. According to Mary K. Whelan, a Doctor of Anthropology focusing on gender studies, sex and gender are different. She states, “Western conflation of sex and gender can lead to the impression that biology, and not culture, is responsible for defining gender roles. This is clearly not the case.”. She continues with, “Gender, like kinship, does have a biological referent, but beyond a universal recognition of male and female "packages," different cultures have chosen to associate very different behaviors, interactions, and statuses with men and women. Gender categories are arbitrary constructions of culture, and consequently, gender-appropriate behaviors vary widely from culture to culture.” (23). Gender roles are completely defined by the culture each person lives in. While some may think that another culture is sexist, or dem...
...hen these women have outside jobs they are still mainly responsible for childcare and care of the home, the male of the household has not taken on more tasks. This does not level the playing field between genders and causes more stress for the female in the family. In fact, while the male is not providing anymore assistance around the home, some of the childcare is being outsourced.
In the article, “American Marriage in Transition”, Andrew Cherlin, a specialist in the sociology of families and public policy, writes about the changing division of labor in the latter part of the 20th century when he mentions “The distinct roles of homemaker and breadwinner were fading as more married women entered the paid labor force. Looking into the future, I thought that perhaps and equitable division of household labor might become institutionalized” (46). Cherlin puts it perfectly when he describes previous roles of a married couple and being the homemaker and the breadwinner. While women took care of their homes and made sure everything ran smoothly, men went out to earn money in order to put food on the table. These were the ways of the early 1900s. Cherlin goes on to mention how these roles were beginning to fade over time as more women left their homes to pursue jobs. As this trend has been present for nearly 100 years, Cherlin believes that it will continue on until the workforce is split as close to 50/50 as it can get. Cherlin goes on the speak about how designated roles are no longer relevant as when he states “Men do somewhat more housework than they used to do, but there is wide variation, and each couple must work out their own arrangement without clear guidelines” (46). In the early 20th century, men were expected to work and women were expected to take care of the home. These expectations were the basic guidelines that society had set for married couple. As Cherlin observes, these guidelines have slowly began to fade as men and women are no longer thought to have designated roles. Families have become more diverse in the sense that they can arrange their family roles without societal expectations and pressures getting in the way. This giant shift that took place throughout the
An individual’s gender represents how they look; an individual’s culture represents their beliefs and actions. Women and men are allocated to a gender role and we all must act out the masculine or feminine behavior as arranged by our society and our culture. Trying to live up to those qualities and expectations are the reason people live their lives a certain way. The book Things Fall Apart portrays ideas about the Igbo culture. In the Igbo society, it is determined at birth what roles someone will have. Throughout their entire lives they continue carrying on their culture’s beliefs by accepting responsibilities chosen for them based on gender. Contrasting to this, the American society does have gender roles but it is based more on a Eurocentric perspective. In this society, roles of individuals are focused on equality rather than gender. Children learn to grow their characteristics opposed to being told. However, both cultures should be accepting among each other after realizing everyone is living according to their society. Every society has different traditions and beliefs; different cultures are just told in different
An argument has been raised that women have to be in charge of their home due to a man’s unwillingness to take over parenting responsibilities. That is quite beneficial to the women’s rights movement for the reason father’s helping a lot more time with children, building a stronger family relationship. Women have been subjected to fit into a certain image to suit society eyes for a long time, one of the main images being a stay at home mom nut they a capable of so much more. Females have more of a broader range of abilities than men do regardless of widespread idea that they are incapable of doing most activities.
Instead these life decisions are primarily influenced by an individual’s personal limits, beliefs, and morals. Though sexism and pay discrimination still exist there are so many regulations and penalties in place that such behavior has become very uncommon. Dorment creates a new scene where he asks women to not only take on the same sacrifices men past and present have all while realizing that men are doing the best that they can. I believe that this scenario created is key to realizing that women can only take on leadership roles or progress in their careers if they are willing to make sacrifices. They can’t expect special treatment or think that being successful doesn’t come with downsides when the thing they are fighting for is equality. According to the Pew Research Center 60 percent of two parent homes with children younger than eighteen consist of dual-earning couples. This study explicitly shows how men are no longer the sole provider, but instead that women are taking on careers while giving up the stay at home role. In addition, despite men typically spending a little less time at home than women it is become increasingly normal for the home work load to be more evenly divided in dual-earning households. As Richard Dorment mentions, this raises the question “Why does the achievement gap still exist?” Men and Women are increasingly splitting the home work load between each other yet men still appear to be achieving more in the workplace than women. Though the opportunities available to each are the same it is the personal motivation and limits that are resulting in the gap. Women value family time over work time greatly while men are much more willing to sacrifice personal time for work because they feel it is for the good of their family. The difference in personal importance is one factor that contributes to the gap and
The focus of this week assignment is to discuss the interactions of gender, ethnicity, and identity development. In addition I will discuss the role of stereotyping and how it influence male and female gender identity. In conclusion I will discuss the impact that ethnicity and gender have on children when it comes to choosing between the ethnic identity of their family of origin and their culture.
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
It’s not like women couldn’t work before, they could, but they didn’t have too much social freedom like getting divorced or not having children. Their voice wasn’t as important as men. Most of the time, men had to decide everything in the family and had control over the family. Coontz believes that today women have more control over their own lives and they can choose however they want to live their lives. Kuttner also agrees that “most Americans, after all, believe women should not be consigned to the nursery and the kitchen” (122).
During the video clip Changes in the American Family Since 1970 we were learning about the changes that had occurred in American families since 1970, which have, even since then, changed in other ways. At the time of the video clip we were learning different things from experts Arlie Hochschild and Timothy Biblarz. One of the changes that have been made, this change being the most drastic, is the amount of women who were working in the labor force at the time. According to Arlie Hochschild, mothers of children 18 and under, less than half of them (43%) were in the labor force in the 1970s. Today over 2/3 of women are now working in the labor force, and taking care of children when they arrive home from work. Once women joined the labor force it seemed that the roll of men seemed to change drastically also. Once women were gone at work during the day, along with the men, the men were beginning to help more around the house. Hochschild had made the comment during the video clip that men are doing more work at home and women are doing a lot less, which all together means that less work is being done at home. In the home in the 1970s the rolls that each spouse had were different in many ways. Before women joined the labor force women took care of the children. By taking care of them, women did the important things such as bathing them, brushing their teeth, combing their hair, as the video stated, the maintenance things. As a father in the 70s th...
In more progressive societies, being able to select a child’s sex may lead to a
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's
In American society, the woman has always been viewed in the traditional viewpoint of what role she should play in the home; that she is the homemaker or caretaker. Even when women break from the stereotypical role of "housewife" and join the workforce, they still are not given an equal opportunity at acquiring a job that is seen to be as advancing or of higher recognition, as they would like to have. Men usually already take those positions.
...d women’s biological purpose has provided men a source of comparative advantage in work. It is, therefore, natural for most companies to think that women cannot be as capable as men in terms of assuming strenuous or challenging positions because women, by default, become less participative and more vulnerable when they start to have family and children. Apparently, this situation has led to various gender discriminations in the labor market.
The roles women typically play in the family may not always be consistent with success in the occupational arena. Staying home to care for a sick child may conflict with an important meeting (Broman 1991:511). Sometimes there has to be a change of plans when it comes to the family. Most people believe that family comes first no matter what. Men 's engagement in paid work fulfills prescriptions of hegemonic masculinity by facilitating their ability to gain status in the public sphere. A man can judge his worth by the size of a paycheck (Thebaud 2010:335). Most research shows that women are more likely to be effected by the household and men are more likely to be effected by their job. Some people feel that the goal is to reach higher on the occupational