Gender Roles: Sociological Concepts - Essay Example

Gender and Sex: Why Hunters and Gatherers typically end up in their roles; hunters the men and gatherers the women. Introduction The term gender essentially refers to the meanings that social systems ascribe to female and male categories. All known societies possess such a system, though the components and workings vary widely from society to society. For almost ninety-nine per cent of existence humans have lived as hunter-gatherers. Given the two million year timeline, agriculture is very recent having arrived merely 10,000 years ago. It may be hard to admit, but observers point out that given the long human existence much of our behavior in our various professional and domestic roles tend to be more reminiscent of such a hunter-gatherer existence. Time, evolution, natural selection has essentially conditioned the minds and instincts of the two sexes. For instance, if a man had 10 wives he could have loads of children - his genes would be carried forward - the family name would be preserved. But this is not practicable for a woman. Owing to the thousands of years of natural selection, males have tended to evolve as aggresive and risk takers who often look at any and all opportunities while women tend to be far choosier about sharing genes. Women tend to look for a fit and healthy mate and one and who is capable of providing adequate resources for sustenance. This resembles the hunter-gatherer societies of the primitive ages, what mattered then is the same that matters now. Women tend to be less aggressive, and more sensitive to the complexity of the issues at hand. Gender Roles: Sociological Concepts Several elements combine to shape a person's gender role, which is expressed through clothing, behaviour, choice of work, personal relationships and other factors. Traditionally, gender roles were divided into strictly feminine and masculine gender roles, though these roles have diversified today into many different acceptable male or female gender roles. However, gender role norms for women and men can bear significant variations across cultures and geographies. Social groups and subcultures, too, can condition one's gender role. Historically, for instance, eunuchs had a different gender role because of their different biology. A term associated with describing gender roles is androgyny- denoting the display of both male and female behaviour. A number of terms have emerged portraying behaviors arising in this context. For instance, the "sensitive new age guy" is described as a traditional male gender role with a more typically "female" empathy and correlated emotional qualities. The "metrosexual male" adopts or claims to be born with similarly "female" grooming habits. This have given rise to arguments in various quarters that such new roles are mere rebellion against tradition and hence do not form a distinct role. Sociological research points out that the conventional feminine gender roles have become less relevant in Western societies. This trend is attributed to the starting of industrialization. Indeed, the notion that women do not follow a career no more valid in a majority of Western and many of the Oriental societies. For a long time now, gender roles have occupied a central place in the nature-nurture debate. Traditional theories argue that a person's gender identity, and thus gender role, is a product of nature. For instance, in patriarchal societies it is often claimed that women are naturally better placed to nurture children. Various circles in the scientific community have come to support the concept that differences in gender roles originate in differences in biology. Many nineteenth century anthropologists refer to the life of primitive hunter- gatherer societies for evolutionary explanations for gender differences. For instance, they assert that the need to take care of offspring may have limited the females' freedom to hunt and hence assume the role of the gatherer. Current trends in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology tend to explain those differences in social roles by treating them as adaptations. However, like other approcahes, this too has controversies inherent. Current Thoughts Simone de Beauvoir's feminist works and Michel Foucault's reflections on sexuality had far reaching impact on sociology and cultural anthropology of the 1980s. Their theories gave rise to the idea that gender was unrelated to sex. Thus, in many circles, the notion emerged that a person could therefore be born with male genitals but still be of feminine gender. In 1987, R.W. Connell embarked upon an extensive research on whether there are any connections between biology and gender role1 and concluded that there were none. However, Connell's research has come to be rejected by most scientists because there exists concrete evidence of the effect of hormones on behavior. A number of psychologists assert that the female brain is basically hard-wired for empathy, while the male brain is essentially hard-wired for understanding and building systems. Current trends in Western societies toward men and women sharing similar occupations, responsibilities are suggestive of the fact that the sex one is born with does not directly condition one's abilities. Inspite of the differences in average capabilities between the sexes, the capabilities of some members of one sex obviously fall within the range of capabilities needed for tasks conventionally assigned to the other sex. More often women choose to be housewives than men enacting the role of "househusbands". Scientists attribute this to biology. However, feminists suggest that it is the result of socially constructed gender roles (as well as economic pressures). There are many who believe that behavioral differences are a result of both these factors. Some even argue that gender roles themselves are abstractions of overall differences between men and women. This esssentially gives rise to the concept of circularity and the idea of the social reinforcement of natural tendencies. The interactionist approach holds that roles, including gender roles are not fixed, rahter they are constantly negotiated between individuals. Noted sociologist Talcott Parsons developed a model of the nuclear family in 19552, which compared a strictly traditional view of gender roles to a more liberal view. He was of the opinion that the feminine role was an expressive one, while the masculine role an instrumental one. As suggested by Parsons, the expressive activities of the woman fulfill "internal" functions, for instance, strengthening family bonds. On the other hand, the man performed the "external" functions of a family, such as providing monetary support. This bears semblance to the primitive hunter-gatherer tendencies. Hunting and Gathering Tendencies in Modern Roles Indeed, on many occasions, it may be argued that men and women act as hunters and gatherers- men are hunters and protectors, and women are nurturers and gatherers. The differences between the sexes on matters of skills, customs, ways of thinking and communicating, can be traced back to prehistoric times when men were hunters and women were gatherers. The consequences of these two separate roles are many. Men, it may be argued, hardly notice anything, collect very few details and have only a limited ability to stay focused on one thing at a time. On the other hand, women notice a lot of things they consider important, gather of details and can easily focus on accomplishing multiple tasks. While women verbalize their thoughts and emotions, men tend to communicate through non-verbal means. This can also be attributed to the facts that since men were hunters they had to be quiet, so that they don't scare away the prey. As gatherers, women had to resort to frequent verbal communications in order to perform complicated tasks. The differences can be attributed to the fundamentally distinct social roles as evolved over the aeons humans lived as a society of hunters and gatherers. Being hunters, men went out in a group, with their focus on one single goal- the kill. It might take them the whole day, quietly waiting in ambush, but eventually they would accomplish the task at hand, go back home and defend the cave. As the gatherers, women noticed everything about them, gathering both food and other details that would help them gather more things then and in the future. This same rule, it may be argued, applies to the shopping habits of men and women. Men go into the store, sharply focused on getting the one thing they need, and then go home. Women like to wander around, gathering all sorts of information. Indeed, for all except the last 13,000 of the 300,000 years of our existence as a species, human beings have always had the propensity to organize in small communities, of under fifty people, in which men and women do different tasks. It has been argued that we've done so mostly because of the way we are born. During pregnancies, women were less able to defend themselves. This meant that men are the ones who would venture out to hunt, while women gathered food or did domestic work, including childcare, in or near villages or camps. Sociologists suggest that these two kinds of work required different abilities. Men had to exert bursts of physical strength to run down, attack, and kill their prey, and the hunt was violent and dangerous. It favored those who were strong, fast, and decisive. It favored strategic and tactical intelligence, and promoted the ability to plan, and to adapt plans quickly to changing circumstances. On the other hand, gathering food, domestic work, pregnancy, labor, giving birth, and childcare required a different kind of strength and intelligence. These demanded the capacity to stick with tasks for a long time, even when they were exhausting and painful. Women did this domestic work with or around other women and around children. Domestic work, thus favored those who were skilled in maintaining interpersonal and social relationships, including preventing and resolving conflicts before they became violent. Both men and women display these two kinds of strength- bursts and endurance- and intelligence- strategic and relational. Most men, though, for almost all of the history of the species, have been hunters, and most women have been gatherers and have cared for children. This has resulted in measurable differences between the sexes. Men tend to be physically bigger, stronger, and faster than women. They tend to focus on objects and to develop the ability to use objects to achieve ends more quickly than do women. Women tend to focus on interpersonal relationships and to develop language and interactive skills more quickly than do men. While differences in the kinds of strength between men and women are genetically encoded, differences in kinds of intelligence may or may not be. Even if the differences in intelligence prove to be genetically encoded, research shows four findings. First, some women are better than most men at strategic thinking, and some men are better than most women at maintaining interpersonal relationships. Next, social conditioning plays a decisive role in shaping individual development of these kinds of intelligence, even shaping the physical growth of nerves. This conditioning starts right after birth. When it is a male infant, adults direct greater focus on objects, while in case of a female infant the face receives greater focus. This disparate social conditioning results in measurable differences in the nerves and areas of the brain governing these different foci. Third, whatever be the genetic endowment and individual history, the conditioning exerted by natural and social environments have a decisive impact on the way individuals behave in communities. Finally, even in communities where genetics, social conditioning, and environments lead to a predomination of one kind of behavior, individuals and the communities can and sometimes do learn to favor different patterns. Crises demand the kinds of strength and intelligence associated with hunting. Fleeing a natural disaster or fighting a band of attackers requires strength, speed, and strategic thinking. In wake of such situations, people naturally follow and rely on those who are physically strong and strategically intelligent. These leaders are usually males. Repeated and frequent crises have a severe impact on the social organization of communities. There are anthropological and archaeological evidence, which indicate that in times of prosperity hunting-gathering communities tended to organize around groups of related females. Egalitarian collaboration was the norm in such communities. Frequent crises resulted in organization around strong and strategically intelligent males not only during the crises, but also at other times. This hierarchical organization tended to exist side by side with, be overlaid on, and to intertwine with the egalitarian one. Thus, for instance, in villages, most casual everyday encounters were egalitarian, but people made formal decisions affecting the whole tribe only in meetings ruled over by a male leader and in which elite males exercised more power than do females. It may be inferred that gender roles are mainly conditioned by social value systems. Men and women are made to behave the way they are. Right from childhood, men are expected to grow up to be powerful, encouraged better for careers. They are expected to be tough, independent, demanding, aggressive, good problem-solvers, and so on. Thus, men are expected and nurtured to strive for the kind superiority that was expected of primitive hunters. On the other hand, in most social systems, women are encouraged to be good mothers. Emphasis is given more on looks and charms than on strength and brains. Bibliography Alice H. Eagly (1987), Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-Role Interpretation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ Leonore Loeb Adler (ed.) (1993), International Handbook on Gender Roles. Greenwood Press. Westport, CT. D. Bruce Carter (ed.) (1987), Current Conceptions of Sex Roles and Sex Typing: Theory and Research. Praeger Publishers, New York Paula J. Caplan et. al, (1997), Gender Differences in Human Cognition Oxford University Press, New York. Gender Role, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role, accessed on 05/05/06 Competition and Feeling Superior to Others, http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap9/chap9p.htm, assessed on 05/05/06 SteinhoffSmith, Roy, The Origins of Patriarchy (Part One) , Accessed on 05/06/06 Read More