What are gender roles?

Gender roles in society means how we’re expected to act,

speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves.

Every society, ethnic group, and culture has gender role

expectations, but they can be very different from group
to group. They can also change in the same society over
time. pink used to be considered a masculine color in the
U.S. while blue was considered feminine. Gender role is a
type of stereotype.

What is a stereotype?

A stereotype is a widely accepted judgment or bias about

a person or group — even though it’s overly simplified and
not always accurate.

How do gender stereotypes affect people?

Stereotypes about gender can cause unequal and unfair

treatment because of a person’s gender.

There are four basic kinds of gender stereotypes:

 Personality traits —women are often expected to be

accommodating and emotional, while men are usually
expected to be self-confident and aggressive.
  Domestic behaviors —some people expect that women
will take care of the children, cook, and clean the
home, while men take care of finances, work on the
car, and do the home repairs.

 Occupations — Some people are quick to assume that

teachers and nurses are women, and that pilots,
doctors, and engineers are men.

 Physical appearance — women are expected to be thin

and graceful, while men are expected to be tall and
muscular. Men and women are also expected to dress
and groom in ways that are stereotypical to their
gender men wearing pants and short hairstyles, women
wearing dresses and make-up.

Is it a form of oppression?

In the traditional setting, the males were expected to take

up jobs outside the home in offices, farms, mines, and the
military among others. The women were required to support
their husbands and take care of the children and the home.
In totality, the roles offered to the men gave them the
upper hand as far as finances were concerned, a factor
that made the pioneers of gender equality view genders
roles as oppressive to the women. The clamor for equality
took the shape of wanting women to be involved in the same
occupations as the men to level the financial gap and prevent
women from depending on the men for their economic needs.

Despite the male gender roles seeming more glamorous than

those of females, assigning women domestic roles was not
meant to oppress them. The roles were complementary, and
they helped to ensure the permanence of the families that
made up the homes. Most of the jobs that were taken up by
men were associated with risks. Men are better at taking
risks because of their body structure that is adapted for
fight or flight responses. Another advantage of the
mentioned roles was that they favored the women in times
of pregnancy, as they did not have to worry about how it
would affect their careers. They could concentrate on
raising the children with the assurance that the men will
take care of their provisions.

The traditional gender roles cannot be considered entirely

complementary. They are structured in a manner that makes
the women and children dependent on the man, which shifts
the power to the men. Such power has the potential to be
misused. When they lose such power, they do not feel
complete. For example, when a man loses his job and has to
depend on his wife for finances and do house chores, he is
likely to feel emasculated, and loss his confidence. There is
no denying that the evolving roles of the genders are putting
a strain on the traditional family set up. Having both
parents work outside the home makes them not follow up on
the progress of their children. While both parents might
derive happiness from their careers, the children might feel
denied of parental love. These parents are forced to employ
nannies for their children. The nannies often are from
cultures different from the working parents and tend to
influence the children towards those cultures. The continuity
of the values of the parents, therefore, is disrupted.