Unit 3 Gender Roles In Society Research Paper
Gender Roles in Society American comedian Elaine Boosler is accredited to the famous one-liner: “I’m just a person, trapped in a women’s body.” Such an idea is considered humorous to the public because of the unfortunate truth it pertains; it is addressing the reality that even though women are just as capable as men and share the same potential as been, they are seen in a less competent and a suppressive light. In understanding the prevalence of gender roles in society today, we can examine how women suffer from the direct consequences of social inequality in our everyday lives among social themes such as occupations and stereotypes within social media. A primary example of social inequality and its effect on gender roles is the workplace. When it comes to occupational status, women have, first off, longtime been expected to play the “house wife” role; they have been viewed as masters of home economics, rather
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than given the same assumption as men to have intellectual and leadership proficiency. Women have had to stick within specific occupations such as secretaries or assistants, teaching, and even retail, while men have been expected to take more corporate and leadership roles, or higher-status occupations, such as law and medical fields. As recent times have changes, though, women are not as strictly confined to housework roles and have earned some equality in occupations, though not necessarily occupational status. In the workplace, all employees should be viewed on the quality of their performance--which is up-kept to a certain degree, but when it comes to higher-status jobs such as leadership positions, it seems that women are kept down in corporate status by the “glass ceiling.” This phrase refers to the barrier for women in careers to move up the corporate latter, despite their competence and qualifying performance. Such inequality cannot be justified because there is no valid argument to support it! The gender role of women being “weaker” or less able than men, and acting with a “softer” or more sensitive approach, is not necessarily true now that work is more than physical, but even so, is not even a bad quality; women are also seen as being more sensible and orderly, which can be very beneficial in the workplace. Keeping a qualified woman from promotion and corporate leadership is simply wrong, and cannot be justified by any argument produced by traditional gender stereotypes. Furthermore, gender role seems to be detrimental to women in the workplace regarding unequal wages. Research shows women graduate with a higher performance than men from college, but women still earn a smaller salary than men (about 75%), even when they occupy the same exact position and perform the same exact duties. Moreover, if we backtrack to women in the workplace even when they are on an equal level as men, gender roles seem to still be effective in limiting women to their gender roles.
In Deborah Tannen’s “But What Do You Mean? Women and Men in Conversation, she provides an example of how women seem to be stuck in their limitations that has come from a culture of gender expectations (Henslin, 193). At an insurance company, a woman named Helen excessively apologizes, even when she is not in the wrong; she is a quality and productive worker, but received one of the smallest bonuses--not because of unfair wages. She is stuck in the gender role of passiveness that women have been expected to display for a long while, and so her ritual of apologizing for everything had affected her work, and consequentially, her pay. This is not necessarily her blame, though, but more so an effect of gender roles in society. As displayed in just one component of the workplace, the consequences of gender role are prevalent when it comes to inequality within
society. Possibly even more noticeable, though, is the effect of gender roles in the social media, which is not only displayed constantly in our daily lives (ie. television, magazines, advertisements, music, etc.), but instilled in the views of adolescents (especially females) who carry such thoughts throughout their lives. Primarily, the social media of this modern era has sexualized women so severely that people are obsessed with the physical features of women more so than any other of their personal qualities. Two illuminating areas of the social media, advertisements (such Carl’s Jr. Burger commercials and many alcohol promotions) and the music industry (especially hip-hop and rap), have especially depicted women as excessively sexual figures. Women are overtaken by this constant reminder of exploiting their physical qualities and sexuality, which takes away from many other aspects of their life they should prioritize and excel in. In Donna Eder’s On Becoming Female: Lessons Learned in School, she describes this consequence well in saying, “Preoccupations [with appearance] among American women prevents them from focusing on more constructive aspects of themselves, such as who they are or what they are capable of accomplishing” (Henslin, 173). This could not be more true; this is a big consequence to society because it begins at such a young age in females, who carry it throughout the rest of their lives. It also affects the quality of society; instead of women prioritizing their academic accomplishments and competing intellectually, there is more focus on who looks better. Furthermore, with the social media focusing so heavily on the physical attributes of women, there is a constant gender role of sexualization that women must surpass in order to be held equal to men--which they cannot always escape. The modern trend to be thin, commercialized by the model industry and promoted by every other aspect of social media, is so influential to women in their everyday lives that it is inevitable to develop strict bodily views of ones self and their female peers, which brings in the issue of body image pressures. Eder hits the nail on the head in describing how socialization influences girls when she says: “Since girls are cast as sexual objects at such an early age, they often internalize this image as a central aspect of their identity. It then becomes extraordinarily difficult for them to move beyond this self-image to develop a greater sense of their own erotic potential as well as their general creative life force. This denial contributes to such largely female maladies as anorexia and bulimia as well as a growing obsession with plastic surgery among adolescent girls” (Henslin, 179).
Body image pressures not only lead to health issues such as distorted self-perception, eating disorders, and obsessions with plastic surgery, but are detrimental to women’s health and their self-confidence for their place in society. Examining simply two areas of society has already shed light on the repercussions of gender roles in American society, and how women are limited simply because of their gender and female stereotypes. Such sexism is not always purposeful, but more so an effect of traditional gender roles that women today are working to shift away from, in order to earn their rightful equality to men.
References
Eder, Donna. 2005. “On Becoming Female: Lessons Learned in School”. In J. Henslin (ed.), Down to Earth Sociology (pp. 155-161). New York: Free Press.
Tannen, Deborah. 2005. “‘But What Do You Mean?’ Women and Men in Conversation”. In J. Henslin (ed.), Down to Earth Sociology (pp. 193). New York: Free Press.
than given the same assumption as men to have intellectual and leadership proficiency. Women have had to stick within specific occupations such as secretaries or assistants, teaching, and even retail, while men have been expected to take more corporate and leadership roles, or higher-status occupations, such as law and medical fields. As recent times have changes, though, women are not as strictly confined to housework roles and have earned some equality in occupations, though not necessarily occupational status. In the workplace, all employees should be viewed on the quality of their performance--which is up-kept to a certain degree, but when it comes to higher-status jobs such as leadership positions, it seems that women are kept down in corporate status by the “glass ceiling.” This phrase refers to the barrier for women in careers to move up the corporate latter, despite their competence and qualifying performance. Such inequality cannot be justified because there is no valid argument to support it! The gender role of women being “weaker” or less able than men, and acting with a “softer” or more sensitive approach, is not necessarily true now that work is more than physical, but even so, is not even a bad quality; women are also seen as being more sensible and orderly, which can be very beneficial in the workplace. Keeping a qualified woman from promotion and corporate leadership is simply wrong, and cannot be justified by any argument produced by traditional gender stereotypes. Furthermore, gender role seems to be detrimental to women in the workplace regarding unequal wages. Research shows women graduate with a higher performance than men from college, but women still earn a smaller salary than men (about 75%), even when they occupy the same exact position and perform the same exact duties. Moreover, if we backtrack to women in the workplace even when they are on an equal level as men, gender roles seem to still be effective in limiting women to their gender roles.
In Deborah Tannen’s “But What Do You Mean? Women and Men in Conversation, she provides an example of how women seem to be stuck in their limitations that has come from a culture of gender expectations (Henslin, 193). At an insurance company, a woman named Helen excessively apologizes, even when she is not in the wrong; she is a quality and productive worker, but received one of the smallest bonuses--not because of unfair wages. She is stuck in the gender role of passiveness that women have been expected to display for a long while, and so her ritual of apologizing for everything had affected her work, and consequentially, her pay. This is not necessarily her blame, though, but more so an effect of gender roles in society. As displayed in just one component of the workplace, the consequences of gender role are prevalent when it comes to inequality within
society. Possibly even more noticeable, though, is the effect of gender roles in the social media, which is not only displayed constantly in our daily lives (ie. television, magazines, advertisements, music, etc.), but instilled in the views of adolescents (especially females) who carry such thoughts throughout their lives. Primarily, the social media of this modern era has sexualized women so severely that people are obsessed with the physical features of women more so than any other of their personal qualities. Two illuminating areas of the social media, advertisements (such Carl’s Jr. Burger commercials and many alcohol promotions) and the music industry (especially hip-hop and rap), have especially depicted women as excessively sexual figures. Women are overtaken by this constant reminder of exploiting their physical qualities and sexuality, which takes away from many other aspects of their life they should prioritize and excel in. In Donna Eder’s On Becoming Female: Lessons Learned in School, she describes this consequence well in saying, “Preoccupations [with appearance] among American women prevents them from focusing on more constructive aspects of themselves, such as who they are or what they are capable of accomplishing” (Henslin, 173). This could not be more true; this is a big consequence to society because it begins at such a young age in females, who carry it throughout the rest of their lives. It also affects the quality of society; instead of women prioritizing their academic accomplishments and competing intellectually, there is more focus on who looks better. Furthermore, with the social media focusing so heavily on the physical attributes of women, there is a constant gender role of sexualization that women must surpass in order to be held equal to men--which they cannot always escape. The modern trend to be thin, commercialized by the model industry and promoted by every other aspect of social media, is so influential to women in their everyday lives that it is inevitable to develop strict bodily views of ones self and their female peers, which brings in the issue of body image pressures. Eder hits the nail on the head in describing how socialization influences girls when she says: “Since girls are cast as sexual objects at such an early age, they often internalize this image as a central aspect of their identity. It then becomes extraordinarily difficult for them to move beyond this self-image to develop a greater sense of their own erotic potential as well as their general creative life force. This denial contributes to such largely female maladies as anorexia and bulimia as well as a growing obsession with plastic surgery among adolescent girls” (Henslin, 179).
Body image pressures not only lead to health issues such as distorted self-perception, eating disorders, and obsessions with plastic surgery, but are detrimental to women’s health and their self-confidence for their place in society. Examining simply two areas of society has already shed light on the repercussions of gender roles in American society, and how women are limited simply because of their gender and female stereotypes. Such sexism is not always purposeful, but more so an effect of traditional gender roles that women today are working to shift away from, in order to earn their rightful equality to men.
References
Eder, Donna. 2005. “On Becoming Female: Lessons Learned in School”. In J. Henslin (ed.), Down to Earth Sociology (pp. 155-161). New York: Free Press.
Tannen, Deborah. 2005. “‘But What Do You Mean?’ Women and Men in Conversation”. In J. Henslin (ed.), Down to Earth Sociology (pp. 193). New York: Free Press.