Gender Role Controversy Essay Example
Gender can be defined in many different ways based on the opinions of the person you are asking. To me, I believe gender refers to the behaviors and roles that our society deems appropriate for men and women. Although gender roles have changed over time and males and females have become more equal, a certain stereotype of behaviors and tasks which are acceptable for men and women still exists today. For example, cooking and cleaning, home repairs, and being the ‘breadwinner” in the family are all tasks which we as a society usually perceive to be done more often by one gender over the other. Cooking and cleaning has been seen as a woman’s job in the household throughout history. When women could not work and had to raise children at home, they built the stereotypical standard that women need to stay home and cook and clean and raise babies, because that is literally what women did at one time in history. However, with the growth of more women getting jobs during wars when their husbands were overseas, going to college, and becoming more equal with men, the stereotype has somewhat dissolved. Women currently make up almost half of the workforce, yet many occupations remain gender segregated (U.S. Department of Labor, 2005). For example, mechanics, construction workers, and firefighters are careers mostly dominated by males, whereas child daycare, event planning, and fashion and design related careers are typically dominated by women. Many groups of people, both men and women, still believe that women should stay at home and do their ‘womanly duties’, but that is not the reality of the society we live in today. On the other hand, men have stereotypes as to what they should do in a household as well. Society has been complacent with the idea that men do all the ‘dirty’ work, like home and car repairs, killing bugs in the house, going to investigate a noise heard within the house, and other ‘masculine’ tasks such as those. This stereotype also evolved from our