Gender Roles in Different Cultures: Critical Essay

Cultural relativism is “the idea that the significance of an act is best understood by the standards of the actor’s own culture”. (Crapo 2013) Gender is a huge topic today and over the course of American history, we have seen how gender has evolved into many different things. Gender has become a hugely controversial issue within our society, gender was originally only seen as two: female and male. In my normal culture, gender is to be thought of just as men and women, and then sexuality plays a whole other part in that. However, today there are so many different ideas about one’s gender. The other issue surrounding gender is the stereotypes that surround men and women. The stereotyping of men and women has been around for as long as anyone can remember. These issues originally started as women only being seen as homemakers while in a situation of having and raising children. Certain cultures do still view women in this light and are not close to the level that the United States is in terms of accepting women in larger roles in society. While some may say that men are stronger and smarter than women, there are many things that prove women are just as strong and smart as men. Throughout this paper, we will discuss the many stereotypes and equality issues that have arisen over time and how we have overcome them and continue to keep growing.

In this first part of this paper, we will talk about how women have been looked at in the past and how women are currently looked at and treated in other cultures as opposed to American society. Freud is a famous name in the psychology world and had many ideas as to women’s and man’s gender development. Freud talks about how girls and boys are both very different because they have different sexual reproductive parts. Freud states that during the ages of 3-5 years, girls will distance themselves from their mothers and form a stronger bond with their father also known as penis envy. While society doesn’t seem to be hung up on this idea and has not had a whole lot of influence on society it does seem to raise some questions as to the competency of a women’s ability later in life. Although his theory has not been proven to be true. Delaney Abraham’s theory is quite interesting as it talks about the founding of Abraham’s monotheism which is the assumption of male monogenesis, the institutionalization of the father’s rights, and the requirements for conquest. Male monotheism theory says that it glorifies Man as God’s chosen vehicle for creating new life and concomitantly, demands woman. It also brings in ‘Genesis’ from the Bible which is the chapter containing information on the creation of man and women. This section talks about man’s ability to contain females within themselves. According to the male monotheism theory, only the male has the “seed” and can only be the true parent.

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Americans have a reputation for doing things that have been criticized by other cultures. For years Americans have faced numerous issues involving stereotyping, while America has made a lot of advances in gender roles other cultures have not made it this far yet. These other cultures see women as homemakers, not money-makers. The Middle East is one of these cultures where women don’t make money. Women have always been looked at to take care of the home and children and pleasing the man. Women in places like the Middle East also wear veils to cover their faces and are covered with many layers of clothing. They do these things to maintain their modesty, morals, and freedom of choice. Another reason they do this is to avoid harassment. Americans may see these dress codes as weird and are sometimes racist towards people from these cultures, however, they don’t have as many issues with sexual harassment as women in America do. American women dress how they please and sometimes some women choose to wear short skirts and crop tops. These invite a lot of harassment and in previous years people from strongly religious views will state “they deserved it because of what they are wearing” usually targeted at incidents of sexual assault. While women from the Middle East might deal less with harassment, however, they still have the issue of not being able to vote or make their own money. A lot of people from the Middle East relocate to America because America allows women to work and vote.

While women in these different cultures seem to still be thrown aside one thing that women in all cultures have in common is body shaming. Certain women struggle with self-image based on what is put out by the mainstream media as the ‘perfect’ body that a woman should have. Miner's article discusses how they have their own cultural rituals “Female clients find their naked bodies are subjected to scrutiny, manipulation, and prodding of medicine men.” (Miner 1956) It seems that women all over the world struggle with body image and it does not help that the media plays a role in that. Becker. A. E's (2004) article talks about how women in all different cultures struggle with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia based on the images the media releases. The media often portrays women as skinny, tall, gorgeous women and even though these models are beautiful they too struggle with Eating Disorders. Today working out doesn’t seem to cut it therefore people turn to alternative measures to lose weight and look beautiful. This seems to be another gender issue as the article talks mainly about women’s issues with eating disorders and none of men struggle with eating disorders. Women all over the world seem to be struggling with this body image and this is an issue that continues to grow. Miner’s article talks about how there are practices of how the natural body is not good enough. “There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still, other rites are used to make women’s breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation.” (Miner 1956)

Other cultures see American women as privileged because they have so many different types of things at their fingertips. For example, body changing surgery, and Miner talks about these rituals that they perform to help women change their body image. American women seem to go to various lengths to get the “perfect” body they so badly want. This becomes an issue because women then go to teach their children these traits of “your body won’t be good enough if you don’t look like this” to their daughter and to son “Women are only attractive if they look like this.” This creates more of an issue in American culture because it once again encourages body shaming.

Women in American cultures use birth control or other sources of birth control to protect against pregnancy. American cultures also have abortion clinics that help with unplanned pregnancies. While I don’t agree with abortion other cultures like the middle east don’t have these sources for protection. Birth control usually doesn’t cost and now you can get it online through a doctor’s approval however, places like the middle east don’t have these advantages. This would seem to be another reason why women would want to come to the United States so that they have a right to what happens with their bodies. It is often thought that women are reasonable for protection against pregnancy usually in all cultures and an unwanted pregnancy is usually not treated right in other cultures like the middle east. This usually turns out with the mother being left to take care of the child and often leads to child abandonment.

In part two of this paper we will talk about people in other cultures think about themselves. We are all taught from a young age to think for ourselves. American societies do a good job of teaching the growing youth that we live in a great place. We often don’t think that we need to really improve on anything. American women and men have fought hard for their rights. In cultures such as the Middle East women don’t get the chance to work and make money for themselves and are often seen as property. Another issue that happens in Middle East cultures is young girls being promised to older men. American women can say that they are lucky because we have the right to choose who we marry and are not promised to anyone. We have the right to choose what we do with our bodies.

In conclusion, gender roles are a key part of society and how we function. Every culture has different views on how to execute their version of gender roles and no one really knows which way is ‘correct’. In our culture, we strive for the utmost openness when it comes to how people live their lives and what they do with them. Women have advanced greatly in this country in more recent times to take up management positions along with positions high ranking in the government. Other cultures don’t have the same mixture of gender roles that ours does and this can leave males and females very separated. It is important for society to expand and grow in ways that allow all people to achieve personal success. Gender stereotypes will always seem to exist across all cultures, but it is important that we realize how untrue they can sometimes be. Overall despite how hot-button of an issue gender seems to be at the moment the more accepting we can be the further forward civilizations and cultures will grow.

References

1. Becker , A. E. (2004). TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI: NEGOTIATING BODY IMAGE AND IDENTITY DURING RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=8d47e6dc-0e46-446c-a644-8819bec5803d@sdc-v-sessmgr01
2. Crapo, R. H. (2013). Cultural anthropology [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
3. Jones, A. L. (2014). The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/lib/ashford-ebooks/reader.action?docID=1775994
4. Miner, H. (1956). Body ritual among the Nacirema (Links to an external site.). American Anthropologist, 58(3), 503–507. Retrieved from https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html