Journal # 17: Gender Roles
I believe that there is too much emphasis on gender roles in today's society. A gender role is when there are set expectations for a specific gender in soceity. Up until the time of World War Two women have been expected to stay at home: clean the house, take care of the children, and be ready to take care of their husband as soon as he got home. When the men were shipped out to war the work roles typically given to men were open for women to now take a part in. Women took over the more masculine jobs that only men once had control in, only to be pushed back into the home when the men returned back from war. However, not for long. The women were able to work their way back into the work forse to compete with the men.
Now in today's world much has changed. Men are becoming stay at home dads and women are taking on the carreer roles that used to be seen as only for men. However many men are afraid of being steroetyped into the work force, and are getting discriminated against for staying at home with the children and doing stuff only seen fit for women. "In a recent survey, 51% of Americans told the Pew Research Center that children were better off if their mother was at home. Only 8% said the same about fathers." But why is this? I believe that it's because we've become so accustomed to stereotypes that we feel weird or strange whenever someone breaks these customs.
Therefore, I believe that it is easier being a women than a man in today's society. Men are more pressured into typical sterotypes, than women are. Such as when it said in the article "Men are stuck' in gender roles, data suggest" said that "If a little girl is running around on the baseball team with her mitt, people think, 'That's a strong girl,'" However, "When my 6-year-old is running around in a dress, people think there's something wrong with him." Today's world has changed alot, in the category of girls, making it okay for girls to run around and do anything a boy could do, just because that makes her look strong and self determined. But in the sense of the world changing for boys I think that there is a vast difference.
