Bette Davis says, “When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.” There are so many stereotypes when it comes to women. Women are supposed to be behind the superior male. Women are supposed to be ladylike and gentle. The crazy thing is that when a woman goes outside of that typical stereotype; it is considered wrong and unjust. Men have stereotypes as well. They are meant to be macho and have the upper hand. They have to smell and act like the guys in the Old Spice commercials. But as it seems, we all have a certain role to attend to. According to Michael Kimmel, “gender refers to cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity – the meanings of maleness or femaleness” (Kimmel, 2014). This is how society differentiates between what men or women should be. According to thefreedictionary.com, “the overt expression of attitudes that indicate to others the degree of your maleness or femaleness” (Thefreedictionary.com, 2014). The main point here is that society tells and guides people how to act and how to be a man or woman. For this paper, I will go outside the stereotype of how a woman should act in public.
To begin with, I decided to invite my mother, Gwen, and girlfriend, Nikki, out on a public dinner date. I took them out to an Italian restaurant and decided to press my luck with going outside the gender norms. My mother is what you call an “original” woman. She is usually wearing make-up, heels, and known to never have raised her voice above soprano octave. My girlfriend is the typical butch girlfriend. She wears men’s clothing and carries herself like a man. My first step was to not show up to the dinner as a woman. I went to the dinner wearing boy clot...
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...ed to accept whoever you are but that was different with this case. My girlfriend was embarrassed by my actions and that alone made me feel horrible. Both of their reactions proved my point on gender norms. That point is that gender norms can hurt people that does not want to fit into what society wants them to be. I believe that gender norms are unnecessary. They carry heavy burdens for people to follow. We should not have to succumb to what people deemed us to be. Gender norms should be destroyed because it comes with a negative influence on generations to come.
Works Cited
Kimmel, Michael. “Introduction”. The Gendered Society Reader. Ed. Kimmel, Michael and Aronson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 3. Print.
“Gender norm.” The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007. Thefreedictioanry.com. Web 25 Feb. 2014.
What is stereotype? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines stereotype as “believing unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same.” Stereotypes are everywhere. Stereotypes cover racial groups, gender, political groups and even demographic. Stereotypes affect our everyday lives. Sometimes people are judged based on what they wear, how they look, how they act or people they hang out with. Gender and racial stereotypes are very controversial in today’s society and many fall victims. Nevertheless, racial and gender stereotypes have serious consequences in everyday life. It makes individuals have little to no motivation and it also puts a label about how a person should act or live. When one is stereotype they
Throughout today’s society, almost every aspect of someone’s day is based whether or not he or she fits into the “norm” that has been created. Specifically, masculine and feminine norms have a great impact that force people to question “am I a true man or woman?” After doing substantial research on the basis of masculine or feminine norms, it is clear that society focuses on the males being the dominant figures. If males are not fulfilling the masculine role, and females aren’t playing their role, then their gender identity becomes foggy, according to their personal judgment, as well as society’s.
Girls are supposed to play with dolls, wear pink, and grow up to become princesses. Boys are suppose to play with cars, wear blue, and become firefighters and policemen. These are just some of the common gender stereotypes that children grow up to hear. Interactions with toys are one of the entryway to different aspects of cognitive development and socialism in early childhood. As children move through development they begin to develop different gender roles and gender stereotypes that are influenced by their peers and caregivers. (Chick, Heilman-Houser, & Hunter, 2002; Freeman, 2007; Leaper, 2000)
Gender is not based on the sex of a person, but the cultural norms of that society. Gender roles are based on the norms and standards in different societies (Flores 2012). Each societies has their own set of social norms, and the identities that fit those norms. In the United States masculine roles are associated with strength, dominance, and aggression. Women in the US are expected to be more passive, nurturing and subordinate (Flores 2012). Gender roles not only assign traits to men and women they affect the way men and women are supposed to think and act. Women are held to a different set of rules than men are. For a woman to show anger in public is highly stigmatized, and looked down upon. When a man does it it's considered normal. When women are in the media they are given a different set of g...
Wood, J. T. (2013). Gendered lives: communication, gender & and culture (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
‘Boys will be boys’, a phrase coined to exonerate the entire male sex of loathsome acts past, present, and potential. But what about the female sex, if females act out of turn they are deemed ‘unladylike’ or something of the sort and scolded. This double standard for men and women dates back as far as the first civilizations and exists only because it is allowed to, because it is taught. Gender roles and cues are instilled in children far prior to any knowledge of the anatomy of the sexes. This knowledge is learned socially, culturally, it is not innate. And these characteristics can vary when the environment one is raised in differs from the norm. Child rearing and cultural factors play a large role in how individuals act and see themselves.
Changes in society have brought issues regarding gender stereotype. Gender roles are shifting in the US. Influences of women’s movement (Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2006) and gender equality movement (e.g., Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)) have contributed to expanding social roles for both genders. Nevertheless, gender stereotypes, thus gender stereotype roles continue to exist in the society (Skelly & Johnson, 2011; Wood & Eagly, 2010). With changes in gender roles, pervasiveness of gender stereotype results in a sense of guilt, resentment, and anger when people are not living up to traditional social expectations (Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2006). Furthermore, people can hold gender stereotype in pre-reflective level that they may
You are at an interview, the interviewer says that you are not qualified for the job because of your gender. What would you say? Sexism has caused stereotypes, and harassment in the workforce, and professional sports, therefore people should know more about sexism. Media is a powerful tool of communication, it produces both negative and positive impacts on society.
Wood, J.T. (1999). Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture, Third Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
The social norm that I violated was the idea of only women wearing makeup. This norm acts as social control because it creates an expectation that women must be perfect and look perfect at all times to fit men’s likings. It is also a distinguisher between birth genders, as makeup adds a “feminine” look to the wearer. To violate this normal I will wear makeup on my face during the school day.
Kimmel, Michael S, Amy Aronson, and Michael S Kimmel. The Gendered Society Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Socially constructed gender roles have a large impact on the society that we are bred in. Boys and girls are told from a young age what is considered normal for each of them based on what sex they were assigned. Girls are immediately told to be shy but not rude, love the color pink, and clean and cook in preparation of the man they are inevitably going to marry. Boys are told to ‘be men’ and never cry in the presence of anyone, emotions are for girls and anything less would be seen as merely weak. Parents usually prescribe their own upbringings to how their children should be brought up; girls are constantly reminded to watch how they come off to people. Girls must clean and cook, but never show frustration, smile even if she’s scared of unfamiliar
Everyone who was a male in my family was kinda on the same boat when it came to acting like a man. We learned from each other the ways of manhood. But as i recall the times i came close to to those contradictory influences was out of pure curiosity. I am a curious kid by nature. I am interested in the world around, in anything and everything. So, when my cousins who were females would come around, I would engage in some of their girly activities not knowing it was frown upon for boys to do that. One event that marked a significant transition in my gender identity happened about a few months ago. Well lets say I wasn 't the most ideal figure of man. I was really quiet, I spoke as if i was whispering and I was antisocial. I would also complain a lot if things didn 't go my way. It wasn 't till that fateful night of me almost giving up volleyball, two weeks of completing over life and an influential speech from my good friend Greg Scott that i realize that all the stuff I am doing is not going to fly past in the real world. So I pledge to make a change to myself. I pledge to be stronger, talk more, be more confident and more social and here we are
Society has formed several stereotypes throughout the past decades, mainly about gender. Gender stereotypes start at infancy and develop drastically through a person’s life seemingly until death (Watzlawik, 2009). Gender stereotypes are classified as a widely held belief about characteristics thought appropriate for males and females (Weisgram, Dinella & Fulcher, 2011). For example, when you walk into the toy section of a store, you don’t need a sign to indicate which section is for the girls and which section is for the boys. These are stereotype for children, usually boy’s toys are dark colors such as blue or green and girl’s toys are colorful such as pink or purple. Society has placed labels on genders which have ultimately led to stereotypes. These gender stereotypes state that men must act “masculine” and women must act “feminine”. Masculine is characterized
Wharton (2005:21) views gender as a ‘system of social practices’ which gives rise to gender distinctions and maintains it. What Wharton wants to say is that gender involves the creation of both diffe...