Gender roles in our society are based on prejudice.

Paul Crane

24/1/05

Mr. Savage

Humanities

Gender roles in our society are based on prejudice

“Gender roles in our society are based on prejudice” is an essay about the ways in which we stereotype each gender. These stereotypes lead the children, through socialisation, to conform to the way in which both male and females are supposed to act in society. For example, the male stereotype in supposed to have physical strength, be aggressive and competitive characteristics, whereas female characteristics are supposed to be sensitive, caring and compassionate. If men act in the female characteristics they are regarded as “wimps”, and if women act like men then they are called “tomboys”. This view is bombarded at us as children should affect us when we enter working life causing men to have better jobs than those of women. This is prejudice.

I aim to find out whether these views are correct. I want to find out are women biologically less abled than men and that’s why we socialise them differently, or do we think there is a biological difference and that’s why we socialise then differently.

In theory if there are biological differences between the two sexes then once they are born their futures are pre-determined regardless of the socialisation by their guardians through their comformative period. I watched this programme called “freaks” on BBC1 and it showed a boy in Germany who was abandoned in a house with a dog. Now the boy’s only agent of socialisation was the dog. He was found 10 years later wondering the streets, naked and crawling on all fours and barking at passer by. Now surely if nurture (socialisation) was less effective than nature this would not have happened. We simply nurture children into our society as to conform and not stand out. Our society had a tradition of protecting females and let boys be boys. Also in other societies with different cultures the roles are reversed. Women do all the work and men groom themselves.

However, some people argue that nature is all that matters and nurture in a minor factor. This could be deemed to be true. If you look at the animal kingdom, nature, you see this. Let’s take lions for example. The lion gets the lioness pregnant and then if she is still allowed in the pack by the other lioness’s she raised the cubs with the pack. The lions hunt for food and once they get the kill the lionesses comes over and feeds her and the cubs. This basically means that the lion gets the lioness pregnant, lion continues his normal life, the lioness has to gain acceptance all over again. When the cubs are born the lion continues as normal and yet the lioness has to nurture them in everyway for them to survive. The outstanding thing here is that even though the cubs know who there father is but also they have loads of lionesses to look up to they stick to there mother and also how the mother naturally cares for the cubs and yet the lion does not.

Has this always been the case if you look at history for example you could argue for both sides. Cavemen had no understanding of anything and yet adapted this idea. From the understanding that we have of cavemen we say that men went out and got the food whilst the women stayed home and looked after the cave and children. On the other hand you could also argue that women were unable to hunt but not because of biological differences but because throughout a cavewomen’s life she is pregnant from as early as 10 until her death. So she was ...

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The way we nurture children affects the way children act and subsequently the way children act when they are adults. This then will affect if they succeed or fail. Things like sexist stereotypes that parents and teachers inflict upon a child at an early age. The “socialisation student booklet” proves this. Simple things like the toys parents buy there children and the nursery rhymes sung to the two genders. For example boys at an early age are given toys that are competitive and toys that they are in control of like racing cars. On the other hand girls are given toys that require love and caring for like dolls, furthermore, both genders are usually sung these nursery rhymes. “What are little girls made of, Sugar and Spice and all things nice, that’s what little girls are made of.” And “What are little boys made of, Slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails, that’s what little boys are made of.” This tells young children from an early age that there is a difference between the two genders. It also tells boys to be competitive in the world whereas females are meant to be loving. Therefore when a child leaves school males would be likely to further there education whereas females even though better GCSE achievers at school are socialised to not go to university but find a husband.

Girls are better achievers than boys at GCSE level, from a survey (GCSE ATTAINMENT) it showed that girls achieved a 54% pass rate and only 44%of boys did the same. This could be because of how differently the two genders are treated in school. Some teacher’s address a male child by there surname because they are likely to have that for the rest of there lives. In contradiction they address a female child by there Christian name because their likely to get rid of there surname. Also as Ken Browne states “Boys demand more of the teachers time, and disruptive, unruly behaviour from boys is more likely to be tolerated than the same behaviour from girls. Girls fighting in the playground , for example, are likely to be punished far more severely than boys fighting, since girls are not expected to show such “unfeminine” behaviour.” This is a clear distinction towards the two sexes, demonstrating that women should conform towards “feminine” things such as talking ECT. Girls even though “smarter” than the majority of boys are not expected to carry there education on to a higher level. This is a shame and things should be done to help change this.

Things are now being done and have been done to change this. Even from nursery level (grassroots level) they have started to shift all the sexist nursery books and rhymes away. This is because many nursery books portray women as weak and completely dependent on men. Little Red Riding Hood for example was to be attacked and the man came in to save the day for the female. Also as adults things are being done to change the “male dominated world.”

Some changes are successful and some are getting there. For example, socially, women were not allowed into Working Men’s Club unless it was to serve, until a few years ago. Although this is a small accomplishment it could change some views. If an executive man walks into working men’s club everyday and sees both men and women socialising this could also have an affect on his views. Furthermore, if the next generation (the children) see this they won’t think that serving is just for women. This is a successful change.

In sports today men and women are getting to become on an even par. There is now an active female referee in the lower divisions of the English Football Leagues. Although this is a huge accomplishment for women and therefore loads of women should and could follow, the amount of abuse she suffers from players and fans alike is immense. Therefore this could affect any women’s attitude to getting involved into men’s football because they do not want to be subjected to this abuse. There was female referee in one of my football matches for Kettering Town Youth Team the other week and as she emerged from the changing room all the “wolf whistles” started. During the course of the match one of the players said “Ohh shut up you stupid tart, you don’t know what your on about…go on go back to the kitchen.” This will dishearten many females who want to follow in her footsteps. Furthermore, women are now competing with men. In golf a young Asian-American 15 year old by the name of Yi Kim is doing this. She won so many titles on the PGA Tour that she was eligible for the Masters Tournament and when she put her name down there was a huge debate. So there are changes occurring for women in sport but as we can see there are not yet quiet successful ones. Not only is this happening in sport but also in the general day-to-day life.

In a survey conducted in 11PSA humanities group it was discovered that 48% of jobs around a household are shared between both parents, 5% of jobs were done by men only and those jobs were car maintenance and the other 47% of jobs were done by women only.

We have also seen a change in the work place. From a survey of 12 companies in the East Midlands (work experience chart that I investigated) 2 of 12 managers were females. Furthermore out of the 12 companies, 44 people were on management team, 48% of them are female. As we can see women are so very close to closing down on the 50% mark(true equality for gender)on both management team and there manager status. This shows that women are closing down on equality in the workforce.

In conclusion I can say that people are starting to realise the potential of women in the work force. Females are getting more and more top jobs this may be because women are making the most of there education and now not being discriminated against when it comes to the working world. This is thanks to things like the awareness of discrimination and The Discrimination Act enforced by the government.

So thing are “looking up” for females. However, at this moment in time males are still succeeding over women in today’s society. This need to change so that young girls can conform to new stereotypes to achieve true equality. This is mainly because of “old school” views from other cultures of our society who still strongly insist on male dominance. Many things affect this like media, who portray women into 2 roles, sex symbols and mothers. This is a main issue for women to overcome for them to achieve equality.

I feel that gender roles in our society were based on prejudice. However, prejudice towards women does still exist.

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