Gender And Gender Roles

This chapter focuses on the social issue of gender roles and stereotypes including topics such as: biological gender roles, religion and gender roles and gender roles within the working world. The research will delve into how graphic design and advertising plays a major role in the everyday lives of society. Overall this chapter will present how graphic design can be used as an effective tool to focus on the social issue of gender roles and stereotypes.

Literature Review:

1.1 Gender roles:

Gender roles are a set of standards, which impose expectations on the behavior of men and women. These norms for socially appropriate behavior vary from culture to culture and change over time. Some of the gender differences are biological but others are

The model showed that gender-roles are intensified by gender-specific education which determined that men who were encouraged to focus more on their career, while women were involved in the household duties and the children’s upbringing. Should there be a disagreement the man has a say and the woman is to agree. Nowadays, in Modern society, co-education schools offer the same education to both girls and boys therefore men and women acquire the same qualification and there is more equality with household work and debates. (contributors, 2008)

Gender roles are not always negative: ‘the more germane question is: are gender roles a bad thing? Most feminists would say yes. But developing an identity that is consistent with your sexual identity could be seen as an important part of your maturing process.’ (Keim, 2009).

1. 2 Biological Gender roles:

The difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is the fact that ‘sex’ refers to the biological differences between males and females (chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs), and ‘gender’ refers to the cultural differences, lead by society, expects of males and females, therefore a person may not be able to change their sex but they can change their gender. (McLeod,

She goes on to give minor examples of how roles society has changed: ‘we have single- parent families, contract marriages, palimony suits, and serial monogamy. Women demand equal pay for work of equal value and take assertiveness training, and feminists organize to change long- standing political and social structures. Men are unsure about whether to expect a thank you or a snarl when they hold a door open for a woman, and clothing designers offer us the world of unisex dress. Hair length doesn 't matter; the gender gap in finishing marathon races gets smaller every year; and "affirmative action" has become embedded in our language.’ (Fausto-Sterling, 1992, p.