As one looks through society, one starts to see many cracks and loopholes where one set of standards does not apply the same way for men as it does to women, and vice versa.
One of the main and most discussed double standards when it comes to gender is the fact that men are praised for being promiscuous, while women are put down and called names. This double standard goes way back in the societal memory. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that these gender differences have resulted from males’ and females’ different reproductive capacities. A woman can go have sex with a man, but she then will be limited to carrying his baby for those nine months. In the meantime, the man can go out and have sex with many women, and have all of those women pregnant at the same time, thus resulting in multiple offspring. “Because men have greater reproductive capacities, it is considered beneficial for them to inseminate as many females as possible to maximize the survival of their offspring (Milhausen and Herold).” Still, the theory does not fully explain why women, even though they do not have the ability to spread their genes as quickly as men can, are expected to be sexually conservative. Perhaps the simplest explanation from an evolutionary standpoint is those women are sexually conservative because they are the ones that have to have the babies. Pregnancy is hard work, not to mention that if a woman sleeps around, she is bound to be unsure of whose baby she is carrying.
Despite the sound logic of the evolutionary argument, it does not account for what humans have had for a long time: contraception. This is why many people prefer to look at how this double standard formed from more of a sociological viewpoint. Women’s sexual con...
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...rer way of thinking when it comes to double standards for men and women. Until then, humans must learn to deal with these double standards to the best of their ability.
Works Cited
Crittenden, Ann. “Sixty Cents to A Man’s Dollar.” Reconstructing Gender. Ed. Estelle Disch. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 433-40. Print.
Eagleview USA Inc. "The Official Home of America's Fun Couple." 2009. 16 May 2010
Fielding, Nick. Top 10: "Dating Double Standards." Ask Men Mag., 8 April 2007. Web. 15 May 2010.
Jamison, Kathleen Hall. Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.
Magnus Hirshfeld Archive for Sexology. "The Double Standard." 15 May 2010
Milhausen, Robin R and Edward S Herold. "Does the Sexual Double Standard Still Exist? Perceptions of University Women." Find Articles. November 1999. Web. 15 May 2010
All people are forced to see themselves as society has shaped them, both male and female. Although progress for gender impartiality has been made, it can still be said that societal maxims enforce the incorrect notion that women are inferior to men. In matters of economics, women are offered far fewer employment opportunities, and I believe that this can be validated by the fact that many women have been conditioned to "marry well and let him...
Zeilinger believes that not only women suffer from oppressive gender roles. Men often suffer just as much if not more. She seeks to expose the issues men face in todays society. Guys do have emotions, and when they come, they must face a big dilemma. They can either disconnect from their human emotions or live in a “state of contradiction” against their “manliness.” The traits that traditionally come with being a man are harmful to society. They are expected to be “cunning and take power and control instead of sharing it.” Men must be willing to point out weaker men in order to be above them. Zeilinger points out the adverse effect this mainstream mentality has. Guys are afraid to stray from the strict rules of manliness. If men go against the common standards they risk losing their identity as men. Those who choose to not follow these social norms are seen as a threat by those who are clinging to them. Gay men, for example often choose to stray from these norms. Zeilinger brings up a story of a friend who is gay and must overcome “male and female stigmas”. He often feels displaced as he does not fit in the realm of male or female roles. Zeilinger ends her article calling for change among both men and women in order to create a healthier
illustrates the discrimination against women and the issues that arise from a gender double standard society.
Not to say there isn’t burdens that are exhibited with manhood, but there still remains some hefty barriers on the road to 21st century equality. It is a fact that men are met with greater confidence in the workplace, while women remain severely underrepresented
Reproduction in Homo sapiens, as in all animals, is a primary driving force and has been elaborated upon since the beginnings of society. Humans must take part in sexual reproduction to produce offspring, thus initiation behaviors can be studied. Commonly, the male makes advances and the female is the selector, or chooses the mate. For humans, this holds true and behavior is modified to maximize competitive receptability. This phenomenon carries across all cultural boundaries and is deeply rooted in the overall behavior patterns in the people of the culture. People try to refine their natural appearance to maximize mating opportunity. The males attempt to enhance features for success in initiation and females compete for receptability completeness.
Gender codes in America have been discussed and debated by many. There has been many conflicts and controversy over this topic due to the public image associate with both sexes. Media and entertainment have continuously added fuel to the fire regarding gender codes in America by making it one of the most talked about issues in the United States. This issues both concern men and women and their social status in America. Americans has been facing these issues for years trying to come up with some solution to put the gender hierarchy in America to rest. When one looks at the issues and conflicts of gender roles in America it is obvious that one can see the many differences, biases, and unequal opportunities provided for both men and women in America. Gender codes in America have divided both men and women from one another categorizing and placing labels on both sexes due to stereotypes.
...socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive and therefore will dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes. Fortunately, our training to gender roles is neither complete nor uniform. As a result, it is possible to point to multitudinous exceptions to, and variations on, these themes. Biological evidence is equivocal about the source of gender roles; psychological androgyny is a widely accepted concept. It seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination.9
The article The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles by Emily Martin explains the social constructs of stereotypes and how they are central to our perception of the world around us. Culture is something that shapes how even biological scientists describe what they discover about the natural world. Furthermore, Martin takes a deeper look into the scientific accounts of reproductive technology.
Realistically, when someone is more powerful, they have the ability to set the rules. Men have historically held power in society, which means that women did not have as much stance or freedoms as men have had in the past. For example, Canadian women did not have the right to vote until the year 1916. This factor has continued to trail into the present day, creating the ‘weak’ image towards women, overall forcing and pushing men to become the opposite of this factor. Thus, cultural ideals of masculinity rely on the ideas of femininity through patriarchy and gender binaries. The emphasis on characteristics of men are being exaggerated, as society is pressuring men with unattainable standards of masculinity such as being tough, muscular and buff. Men continue to conform to these characteristics, in the fear of being oppressed through exclusion, which only strengthens society’s standards even more. This leads to more societal pressures on men, thus leading men to experience more societal pressures in the fear of feeling excluded. These “systems of inclusion and exclusion are divisions or barriers that prevent people from joining and belonging.” (50). For example, if a man wears nail polish, they may be oppressed and excluded through facing ridicule and bullying, because wearing nail polish is considered “girly”, therefore this boy is rebelling against society’s socially
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
In time and energy, the male expends virtually nothing in sexual contact compared to the female, biologically, the best strategy for a man is to be promiscuous because the more women with whom he mates, the greater number of children containing his genes are possible (Taflinger). Thus, a man's biological criteria can be simple: ?she must be healthy, she must be young, she must be receptive, and she must be impregnable? (Taflinger). However, women have a greater physical, physiological and temporal stake in producing children, which means she is more interested in the quality of genes he brings and the help she will have while carrying, bearing and rearing the children (Taflinger).
These points raise some interesting issues. If becoming accepted as a man and getting the freedom to act that comes with that acceptance is simply a matter of presenting oneself as a man, then what do we say about all the enshrined natural differences we claim as the basis for our different treatment of men and women?
Within today’s society, many people believe that we treat everyone with more equality than we used to ten years ago. However, double standards are a part of virtually everyone’s lives at every moment of their day. Coined in 1912, the term double standards refers to any set of principles containing different provisions for one group of people than for another, typically without a respectable reason. Plainly, it refers to the fact that we have different norms for the behavior of different groups of people. Anyone can fall into being a victim of double standards. The most common double standards are between men and women. However, there are also racial double standards. In addition, children can be victims too, especially when they have other siblings. I have personal experience with this, since I grew up with an older brother. The double standards that I faced growing up are just minor ones compared to some truly cruel double standards that exist in our society today.
Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are deemed to be proper in the eyes of the society. They are as a matter of fact proper but as time move on, the mind-set of women changes as well, women also want to move on. However the institutional stratification by the society has become more insidious that the stereotypical roles have created a huge barrier between men and women. These barriers has affected women in many aspects such as minimizing their access on a more superior position in workforce organization, limits their ownership of property and discriminates them from receiving better attention and care.
There is constantly cessation why women and men cohabitate, nurture, desire, and endure. Many shrug the similarities and differences to the side due to the complex nature that is involved in understanding the progression. Since the beginning of time, according to the bible, man was placed as the dominant sex, fending for the families well being. The woman has tended to the important jobs around the homestead as situations arose. Often in society, one will find himself in a battle depending on the views of the receiving recipients. Following is a dialogue explaining a safe and metro sexual view as a general whole.