Pros And Cons Of Switching Gender Roles

The repercussions of switching gender roles

In my project I will be analyzing the gender roles of two individuals that go against the norm. Gender roles are socially constructed and people not occupying their role are frowned upon, and often criticized. For the sake of keeping their identities hidden I will refer to the two subjects as A and B. I devised a series of questions that each subject will be asked in an interview style manner. Subject A and subject B are married and have one daughter together but are no longer together so their answers will be in past tense. In this family subject A is female, and is the main provider for the family. Subject B is a stay at home father. Throughout this paper I will try and decipher how switching gender

She is originally from Mexico but arrived in the United States about Forty years ago. She’s currently retired but used to be an engineer for Rockwell Collins. She defied her gender role by being the business woman that left her home regularly and came home late at night instead of being the homemaker mother that society expected her to be. I asked her a few questions to better understand how switching gender roles affected her as an individual, her marriage, and her family as a whole. 1. How did it feel to be the provider of the household? “It was a lot of responsibility knowing that I was the main provider for my children, but it also made me feel very proud. It was satisfying.” 2. Did you feel overwhelmed at times? “Yes, definitely having to balance my career as well as being a wife and mother, sometimes I felt like I took the stress out on my family which I know was misplaced. Work often overflowed into my home life. In an ideal world I would be able to balance the two perfectly, but we don’t live in an ideal world.” 3. Do you feel like your work day is done when you get home? “Well, I got home around 7:30 p.m. every day, and that was on a good day. I got home I made dinner cleaned up and then finally relaxed so no I suppose my work day wasn’t over. Being a mother and a wife, for me, was a lot harder than building airplanes.” 4. Did people judge you because your husband stayed at home and

He owns his own construction business, but also has a handy-man business, and a party planning company. He was wed to subject A for about twenty-eight years. About 10 years into their marriage subject A got offered her dream job, but this position required traveling, and not being home a lot. Subject B decided that he wanted to help his wife fulfill her dreams by managing his business from home while subject A traveled for work. I will be asking subject B a few questions that let us peer into the life of a homemaker husband. 1. Did you ever feel weaker or less effective because you were a stay at home dad? “Yes, and no, yes because I was raised thinking that a man had to be the one who brought home the bacon, and no because I loved subject A and spending time with my daughter made me feel grateful. But it did get hard sometimes my ego would get in the way.” 2. Did being a stay at home dad make you appreciate your wife more? Yes, the first few weeks, well the first few months I started staying home I felt like I was going crazy. I didn’t know how she cooked, cleaned, picked up our daughter from school. Man, I didn’t even know how to run the dish washer. She used to do all that after she came home from work in three hours. I couldn’t do it in twelve, but it was okay I got used to it. I did ok.” 3. Did your friends ever tease you about being a stay at home