The Concept Of Gender And Gender Roles In Society

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The roles within our own society have been fluctuate throughout the centuries, and with today 's connected generation, it is easier to get new ideas to the public faster. The concept of gender and gender roles is an aspect of our society that has undergone through recent change. Now, people have the ability to choose who they want to be and not letting their biological bodies or society tell them how to act, or who to be. With this changing generation, there are thousands of pieces on the subject to try to understand this shift in what used to be a cultural norm. A common theme throughout the Allen, Poisson, and Shlashko’s readings is that gender is a constructed concept within our society. Brenda J. Allen writes about her perspective on social …show more content…

The Witterick family definitely are not your typical “American family”. However, with a changing society, the traditional family no longer exists, because everyone’s definition of family varies. For example, the Witterick’s brave decision to not share the gender of their baby shows that gender is something that we choose or choose not have. The Witterick family allowed their child, Storm, to choose her (personally chosen pronoun) own identity through not sharing her the sex at birth (Possion, 2011). This relates to the Allen piece by the Witterick family challenging the traditional view of gender within society. Additionally, the Witterick’s demonstrated what would happen if we took something as simple as gender out of society (for a short period of time) and how others would react to the situation. Through the Witterick’s parenting style, Storm did not deal with pressures of forced gender identity. Instead, she acted on how she felt and “did” that gender, rather than having her body and parents choose for her. Taking out the role of gender at birth gave Storm the freedom of expression, rather than constricting her within gender norms. Overall, Storm is just like any other child, however, she got to choose who she wanted to be from birth rather than later in

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