“Gender roles are a social construct. When we attempt to assign strengths and weaknesses to either gender, we cut our potential as the human race in half”. For a long time, civilizations have had traditional roles set for men and women. Interestingly gender relations have always been a part of the human race and changed throughout time. Until the nineteenth century, those set normal roles have become more fluid and continued to grow. Discussing the ideologies of gender equality, gender norms, United States notions, and the intersection of sexism, racism, and gender.
Gender relations defined are the traditional roles set by culture and religion typically setting the norms for the relationship between men and women. Existing in most societies culturally men and women have different gender relations. These gender relations have played a key role in our history of gender relations.
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Throughout history, women have made amazing contributions to the typical woman’s role. Traditional women’s roles are to tend to the household and the children. Women were only allowed to do as their husbands said and if they disobeyed they were often punished. With the rise of literature in the 1800s, women began writing considered taboo for women sometimes writing under aliases to prevent them from being identified. During the Progressive Era, women began coming out of the household and started breaking gender roles and entering public life. At the end of the Progressive Era in 1920 women gained the right to vote. During World War II women began working because of the demand for work and the lack of men. According to Australian Feminist Studies, “From its beginning, it struggled to come to grips with the workings of power in our midst, be that the presence of men at our gatherings, or the way we organized and ran our meetings, or in our relationships with the men in our lives” (Reid 2018:13). Although during the Feminist movement of the 1960s women struggled to gain credibility from the men in their lives. Since then women have been working at gaining that credibility from their peers by pursuing an education and working towards gender equality.
While women do struggle more with gender inequality men suffer as well. Ideologies and institutions maintain gender inequality through the gender pay gap. As of 2019 women make $0.79 for every dollar that a man makes. The gender pay gap even exceeds with women of minorities. As stated in the Academy of Management Perspectives, “The foregoing supports our initial observations that there has been important, significant progress for women. On the other hand, however, there is still a gender pay gap. Women continue to earn considerably less than men on average” (Blau 2007:8). Ideologies maintain gender inequality also by encouraging men and women to work in an environment best suited to their gender. Women are expected to become teachers and nurses working more in the service industry because they have more feminine jobs. While men are expected to work in blue-collar jobs that typically are more labor intensive.
Gender stereotypes suggest that men are masculine and women are feminine. This idea of gender conformity is attributed to the way history began. The idea was that women were meant to primedped and poised and meant to become mothers. While men went and got dirty while working. Socially constructed traits are contemporary norms that cultures use to associate masculinity and femininity.
Gender norms are defined to be the “normal” way for men and women to act. There are many examples of traits and various institutions that maintained these norms. Beginning with the idea that men are meant to be thbreadwinnersers” and provide for the family. When women started entering the workforce there began this belief that “men should earn more than their wives”. As written in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, “We replicate all of our results: when the wife’s income exceeds the husband’s, the wife becomes more likely to exit the labor force and she takes on more chores; moreover, there is suggestive evidence that divorce becomes more likely” (Bertrand 2015:574). They argued that these preconceived gender identity norms play an important role in the success of a marriage. Another example is that men are not meant to express their feelings and emotions. A trait that is still extremely prevalent today is that men can’t cry because it makes them seem like they are “less of a man”. Although it is not true it still becomes hard for men to express themselves when they are sad or hurt.
The dominant notions of masculinity and femininity in the U.S. are racialized by definite qualities. Masculinity is regularly described as stronbraveery, and dominant. Femininity is sometimes described as small, warm, and beautiful. The intersection helps maintain both sexism and racism because as a society we look at women as delicate and weak who are unable to help themselves, and often need a man for help. We also maintain these notions in racism because it creates stereotypes of men and women based on their gender. When people defy the normal we often see that as a problem of sexism and racism.
Lastly, recently the fight with gender relations has become more widespread with large female and even male influencers using their platforms to draw attention to gender issues. As time progresses more and more people are finally abandoning old and outdated gender stereotypes. The world is becoming more accepting of the fluidity of different cultural norms being set by the younger generation. The future looks hopeful for the change of traditional roles of gender relations.
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