gender roles

Examples of gender roles in the following topics:

• Gender Roles in the U.S.

  • There has been significant variation in gender roles over cultural and historical spans, and all gender roles are culturally and historically contingent.
  • Much scholarly work on gender roles addresses the debate over the environmental or biological causes for the development of gender roles.
  • The division of labor creates gender roles, which in turn, lead to gendered social behavior.
  • Parsons developed two models of gender roles within the nuclear family.
  • Describe how gender roles in the U.S. have changed since the 1950's

• Gender Messages from Peers

  • Peer groups can serve as a venue for teaching gender roles, especially if conventional gender social norms are strongly held.
  • Division of labor creates gender roles, which in turn lead to gendered social behavior.
  • Peer groups can serve as a venue for teaching members gender roles.
  • If a peer group strongly holds to a conventional gender social norm, members will behave in ways predicted by their gender roles, but if there is not a unanimous peer agreement, gender roles do not correlate with behavior.
  • These gender differences are also representative of many stereotypical gender roles within these same-gendered groups.

• Gender Messages in the Family

  • Gender role theory posits that boys and girls learn the appropriate behavior and attitudes from the family with which they grow up.
  • This teaches their children that the expected gender roles for men and women require the father to work and the mother to remain in the domestic sphere.
  • Gender role theory posits that boys and girls learn the appropriate behavior and attitudes from the family and overall culture in which they grow up, and that non-physical gender differences are a product of socialization.
  • Social role theory proposes that social structure is the underlying force behind gender differences, and that the division of labor between two sexes within a society motivates the differences in their respective behavior.
  • Division of labor creates gender roles, which in turn, lead to gender-specific social behavior.

• The Functionalist Perspective

  • The functionalist perspective of gender roles suggests that gender roles exist to maximize social efficiency.
  • A structural functionalist view of gender inequality applies the division of labor to view predefined gender roles as complementary: women take care of the home while men provide for the family.
  • Thus gender, like other social institutions, contributes to the stability of society as a whole.
  • This view has been criticized for reifying, rather than reflecting, gender roles.
  • While gender roles, according to the functionalist perspective, are beneficial in that they contribute to stable social relations, many argue that gender roles are discriminatory and should not be upheld.

• Gender

  • The World Health Organization defines gender as socially constructed ideas about behaviors, actions, and roles characteristic of each sex.
  • In a given society, sexual beliefs, values, and attitudes reflect the accepted norms of that society, and individual feelings and opinions are largely bypassed in the assignment of gender and gender roles.
  • Gender, and especially the role of women, is generally regarded as critical to international development.
  • Further, gender equality plays a central role in education as well as in reproductive and maternal health.
  • Examine the role gender plays in health care and healthy lifestyles, especially for women

• Gender and Research

  • Sociological research will study such things as social stratification between genders, the socialization of gender, influences of sexism on educational performance, gender and mass media, inequality in the workplace, gender roles and social norms , and other gender-related topics and social phenomena.
  • Theories that have contributed to gender research and the realm of gender studies include structural functionism (the theory that gender roles were originally functional; for example, women took care of the domestic responsibilities in or around the home because they were often limited by the physical restraints of pregnancy and nursing and unable to leave the home for long periods of time); conflict theory (seeing society as a struggle for dominance among social groups, such as women versus men, that compete for scarce resources); feminist theories (which use the conflict approach to examine the maintenance of gender roles and inequalities); and symbolic interactionism (which aims to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical role of symbols in human interaction).
  • Two instruments incorporating the multidimensional aspects of masculinity and femininity have dominated gender identity research: the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ).
  • Social research will often focus on the influence of gender roles in the workplace, at home, and in other aspects of society.
  • In this image, a woman is seen working in a traditionally masculine setting, challenging gender roles of the time.

• Childhood Socialization

  • Gender roles are taught from infancy through primary socialization, or the type of socialization that occurs in childhood and adolescence.
  • Gender is instilled through socialization immediately from birth.
  • When a boy gets a football for his birthday and a girl receives a doll, this also socializes children to accept gender norms.
  • Because gender norms are perpetuated immediately upon birth, many sociologists study what happens when children fail to adopt the expected gender norms rather than the norms themselves.
  • Children can resist gender norms by insisting on dressing in clothing more typically associated with the other gender, playing with toys more typically associated with the other gender, or having opposite-sex playmates .

• Gender Identity in Everyday Life

  • Gender identity is one's sense of one's own gender.
  • The berdaches, or the Two-Spirit People, are indigenous North Americans who, although biologically male, assume one of many mixed gender roles.
  • These "third" gender roles involve engaging in work and wearing clothing associated with both men and women.
  • Gender identity is one's sense of being male, female, or a third gender.
  • Certainly, socialization, or the process of transferring norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors to group members, plays a significant part in how individuals learn and internalize gender roles and subsequently impact their gender identity.

• Gender Socialization

  • Gender is included in this process; individuals are taught how to socially behave in accordance with their assigned gender, which is assigned at birth based on their biological sex (for instance, male babies are given the gender of "boy", while female babies are given the gender of "girl").
  • Gender stereotypes can be a result of gender socialization.
  • Gender fluidity also shows how gender norms are learned and either accepted or rejected by the socialized individual.
  • The entrance of women into the workforce (and into traditionally male roles) marked a departure from gender roles due to wartime necessity.
  • Explain the influence of socialization on gender roles and their impact

• Gender and Health

  • Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary, from sex to social role to gender identity.
  • The World Health Organization defines gender as the result of socially constructed ideas about the behavior, actions, and roles a particular sex performs.
  • Gender, and particularly the role of women, is widely recognized as vitally important to international development issues.
  • This often means a focus on gender-equality, ensuring participation, but includes an understanding of the different roles and expectations of the genders within the community.
  • Examine the role gender plays in health care services, particularly for women