Concept of gender and gender roles vis-a-vis the family
Gender roles are attitudes, behaviours and values that a society ascribes to both female and male genders . The concept of gender and gender roles further relates to a range of behaviours termed as acceptable or desirable for a person based on the individual’s perceived sex. According to Lindsey (2015), conceptions of femininity and masculinity usually guide gender roles. The roles include the gendered expectations that are biologically determined and socially constructed. Gender roles are culturally specific. The society has socially defined roles relating to males and females. An example of a gender role is the expectation imposed on females that they are supposed to dress smartly and be accommodating, nurturing and polite ( Lindsey, 2015) . Men are expected to be bold, strong and aggressive. Likewise the family set up prescribes mannerisms pertaining to how men and women ought to behave. The family plays a central role in shaping an individual’s gender role and in assigning male or female characteristics regarding mannerisms, behaviour or dressing.
Types of Gender Roles
Various types of gender roles include reproductive gender roles, productive roles, community managing gender roles, community politics role and multiple gender roles ( Ridgeway, 2011) . As an example of reproductive gender role, women are expected to bring up children while men should make the final punishment decisions ( Ridgeway, 2011) . Additionally, women ought to be stay at home mothers, cook, clean and perform all other indoor chores. Men on the other hand should perform duties such as taking out garbage, undertake repairs, mow the lawn and perform other outdoor activities. The productive gender roles encompasses activities performed by males and females in return for cash or kind. Examples include market production and subsistence production. Women in agricultural production perform roles such as peasant wives, wage workers and independent farmers.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Community managing gender roles constitutes activities undertaken by women at the community level. The activities are an extension of their assigned reproductive duties for instance maintenance and provision of scarce resources which include water, healthcare and education ( Lindsey, 2015) . The roles are voluntary and unpaid. Community politics gender roles include duties primarily undertaken by men at the community level for instance organizing at formal political level in unison with national political framework. The roles are usually paid work . Multiple gender roles include activities which women are expected to perform at the same time. However, men are supposed to undertake such roles each at a time. Men are therefore expected to focus on single productive role while women ought to balance the demands of each.
Part played by family play in developing gender roles
The family set up influences development of gender roles from childhood. The family setting may make a child to adopt a set of gender specific behaviours which are embedded in the particular family structure. Parents promote development of gender roles through speaking to, caretaking and teaching their children consequently contributing to growth of certain gendered behaviours ( Cotter, Hermsen & Vanneman, 2011) . Parents who have given birth to sons may tend to express conservative gender role views for instance emphasis on paternal breadwinning role among males, which influences a child’s behaviour into adulthood. The family shapes gender roles through parental expectations of gender roles. For instance, some parents assign housework to girls while outdoor activities such as shepherding are left to boys.
The roles played by children in execution of household duties lead to advancement of gender roles expectations within the family ( Ridgeway, 2011) . Encouragement of traditional gender roles lead to development of gender roles that stem from the family set up. Fathers for example, tend to encourage girls to play with dolls while pushing boys to participate in sports. As Ridgeway (2011) explains , encouraging these roles and selection of children activities by parents in the family greatly influence gender roles development. The parental expectations contribute immensely in shaping children behavioral outcomes, preferences and expectations. Within the family, children develop gender roles when parents condone more masculine or feminine demeanours thereby implicitly coercing children to express or behave in a certain way.
Consequences related to gender roles
Despite having some positive implications, gender roles can also be detrimental to people’s everyday lives. Gender roles have adverse impact on education for instance, a male adult interested in pursuing nursing can enroll in a course they lack passion in such as engineering which is thought to be a masculine course while nursing a female course, hence shuttering the individual’s futute career goals . . Deviation from the expected behaviours can trigger internal conflict and sadness ( Cotter et al., 2011) . Emotional oppression can catalyze depression and precipitate low self-esteem when a person puts themselves in uncomfortable situations. The gender role that men ought to be aggressive leads to normalization and acceptance of relationship abuse ( Cotter et al., 2011) .
Some gender roles such as the expectation in some cultures that men should discipline their wives when they make mistakes train people to connect pain with love leading to abuse of females in relationships ( Cotter et al., 2011) . Gendered expectations influence career uptake that a person selects. For instance, females are pushed to join college and acquire degree prior to starting a career while males are usually under societal and family pressure to join workforce immediately before college and earning since they are the bread winners ( Cotter et al., 2011) . As an adverse consequence, males receive less education relative to females. As a result of gendered expectations, females encounter pay gap discrimination, glass ceiling in various professions, denial of promotions and increase casualization of women workers.
Conclusively, the research has termed gender roles as a range of behaviours considered desirable or acceptable based on a person’s perceived sex. The society, media and the family set up play a critical role in gender roles development. From the above research, gender roles have adverse consequences for example on individual’s careers, education, personality development and relationships.
References
Cotter, D., Hermsen, J. M., & Vanneman, R. (2011). The end of the gender revolution? Gender role attitudes from 1977 to 2008. American Journal of Sociology , 117 (1), 259-89.
Lindsey, L. L. (2015). Gender roles: A sociological perspective . Routledge.
Ridgeway, C. L. (2011). Framed by gender: How gender inequality persists in the modern world . Oxford University Press.
