Gender Roles in the Modern Society - Essay Example

?Gender Roles Gender roles are the expectations, qualities, and manners or behaviours that the society associates with feminism or masculinity. Conventionally, men were perceived as breadwinners as well as a source of security for the family. On the other hand, women’s role included homemaking and childbearing. However, other factors such as religion, culture, history just to mention but a few play a role in determining how different responsibilities are shared between males and females. The roles are mainly learned in the course of socialization. Traditionally, boys were taught by their father to renovate or create new things while girls were taught to do housework duties. These gender roles assumed in childhood were expected to continue to adulthood. The roles are passed from generation to generation though modifications occur such that roles or traits previously associated with males become apparent in females and vice versa. Adults tend to treat boys and girls differently right from infancy. This essay focuses on the gender roles and expectations on male and females in the society. The essay also depicts the different expectations that the society particularly parents have on the gender roles and how these perspectives affect the upbringing of boys and girls. Gender divergence creates a division between boys and girls and it becomes extremely hard to change the perception thus humans end up being categorized into males and females differentiated by their roles (Lindsey15-22). For example, my brother and I were born in Angola. Right from childhood, we received differing attention and treatment. I was treated as if I was too delicate than my brother. Sometimes I would demand for explanations but all I got was that men were supposed to be strong while girls required protection. This is a common phenomenon where most parents tend to shelter girls more than they protect the boy. Girls are appreciated depending on their appearance in terms of tidiness and organization while boys receive appraisal based on their achievements. Such actions persuade boys to be confident, competitive and develop a sense of independence while girls are encouraged to be caring, pleasant, as well as dependent. This results in a society where men are decision makers while women are supposed to go along the decisions (Lindsey 122-130). Another difference that was eminent when my brother and I were growing up was the different ways in which our rooms were decorated. My room was filled with baby dolls and while my brothers was beautified with wall hangings with aircrafts and machines. My brother also had plenty of toys such as toy guns and cars, which I was not allowed to play with. Sometimes, I would disobey the decree and play with my brother’s toy. However, I was greatly ridiculed if met by other girls playing with my brother’s toy and they would refer to me as ‘Tom boy’. Another difference that arises when boys and children are being brought up is the difference in the roles they are accorded. The gender differences that eventually arise between boys and girls are socially built (Lindsey 25-28). Referring to my case, I was expected to help my mother in the household duties such as cleaning dishes. Conversely, my brother was always out playing or assisted the gardener in mowing. The kind of people children develop into is enormously determined by what they watch their parents do or what they are obliged to do. My mother did the house tasks while my father toiled for the family. When I was 12 years old, I told my mother that I was bleeding and she said that was my period. From this time to my 18, she was so worried about me having sex because I could get pregnant, telling me that am too young to have a boyfriend. I was restricted from going out with boys since my mother feared that they could influence me negatively or impregnate me. On the contrary, my brother was free to go out and have fun with his friends. At the age of fourteen, my brother would come home at eight in the evening and my parents seemed less concerned with his whereabouts. Conversely, I had to inform my parents when leaving the house and was expected to come back home before six in the evening. No one feared that my brother would get sexually involved with the wrong girls. This is a common phenomenon particularly in the African society where men are free to experiment sexually while girls are expected to avoid sex before marriage. My father was quite liberal and often allowed me to drive with him and encouraged me on pursuing courses such as engineering or computer science that were considered a male domain especially in Angola. However, the amount of time spent with my father was limited since he was at work for most of the time. In most societies, women were expected to be homemakers and not career women. However, the belief is slowly fading with the hard economic times that necessitate women to help their husbands in providing for the family (Lindsey, 20-35). When I was nineteen, I got a scholarship to study in United States. My parents were resistant since they claimed that I was still young to live on my own in a foreign country. After consultations, they agreed to let me go on the condition that my brother would join me the following year. It is clear how the society portrays women as reliant such that they always need men to protect them. My brother was younger than I was, yet my parents felt that I needed his protection. A year later, my brother joined. By that time, I still had no one to call a boyfriend since my parents insisted that I was in a foreign country, thus I was supposed to be careful. Two years from then, my mother is always worrying about my brother who is 20 years old and does not have girlfriend. My mother still lives in Angola and she calls me every week to ask me if I have seen my brother's girlfriend. Whenever I make a comment about a boy I met and liked, she dismisses the comment as a joke since she still feels I need guidance in selecting the appropriate spouse. Works Cited Lindsey, Linda. Gender roles: a sociological perspective. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005. Read More