ipl-logo

Gender Construction In American Culture

547 Words3 Pages

Back in the day, a typical American family would be a hard working father/husband a mother/housewife and a son and a daughter. But now those days seems to be less common in the American culture. Now it may be the opposite of the typical American family that “We” or our ancestry are used to seeing. Throughout the years, the definition of gender construction has changed over time. Gender constructions are distinctions based on social and cultural between males and females. How does gender construction function? Gender construction functions like a norm. For example, it tells you how you/a person should look and action in our society based on our gender roles. Since gender construction is a form of a social/culturally norm, our American culture …show more content…

In other words, it’s a way of knowing how to fit into our new society. According to Jack Soloman, “America’s great myth of equality celebrates the virtues of mom, apple pie and the girl next door”(Soloman145). Jack Soloman’s point is that America doesn’t really care about female roles. We act like if females are important, but in reality there’s nothing special about them. His comment shows how society is like in the 21st century. Jack Soloman also points out another American cultural myth that affects how gender construction has developed in today’s society. Jack Soloman claims that, “If our society were a vast high- school football game, with the bulk of the participants noisily rooting in the stands while, deep down, each of them is wishing he or she could be the star quarterback or head cheerleader”(Soloman146). In making this comment, Jack Soloman believes, that we are being ignorant citizens for viewing our culture as if it were some fantasy story rather than seeing how many society is changing our gender roles from a hard working father/husband and a housewife/mother to something more. This proves how messed up our culture is and that’s the reason why we are changing our gender roles because we want those old fashion saying to become extinct. All of these myths started with just curiosity

Show More
Related
99 Words | 1 Pages

Society has had this concept of what women’s role in life should be since the beginning of time. For as long as anyone can remember, humanity expected women to stay at home, attend the men’s needs, and take care of household duties. Since society has evolved, women have more freedom, rights, and respect from others. However, there is still a small percentage who think women have a distinct place in life and shouldn’t drift from their “path”. In Twin Peaks and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, women were treated as if they were irrelevant and melodramatic.

Read More
1605 Words | 7 Pages

“The process of learning to think about gender in an adult fashion is one prerequisite to becoming a full member of society” [Devor 416]. Educational, cultural and reflective are three words to describe “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender” by Aaron H. Devor from Rereading America. Devor breaks down the theory of gender role origins on how men and women have been categorized to follow a set of guidelines created not by a patriarchy, but instead on social foundation that is their society. The topic of gender roles within our society and our culture’s view of gender directly correlates to Cohen’s monster thesis number one in his article, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”. Cohen states that, “a monster signifies something other than itself”

Read More
250 Words | 1 Pages

In American culture control over key resources seems to be the most important to the gender stratification. Throughout time, women in America were not equal to men. The men in most cases earned money for the household, held political position, could vote, and own property. Women were there to take care of the children and the household. Over time women began to take on roles outside of the household.

Read More
1014 Words | 5 Pages

Historical events in America have determined that gender roles are not something "God-Given" or natural- gender roles are more of a social structure created by society. However, these historical events lead to society deeming roles necessary to keep certain groups in check. The 1920s was a significant time due to social change and the aftermath of World War II. It was a time when women began protesting and fighting for equality in a society filled with inequality. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald highlights the problematic stereotypical roles given to genders in American society.

Read More
1484 Words | 6 Pages

“People tend to overestimate the difference because they notice the extremes” Zlata Krizan. In this quote she talks about how people focus on the really big things that are different, but there are so many little things that are the same. They say that gender stereotypes are not has bad has the once were. Well study shows that gender stereotypes are just as bad today has they were 30 years ago.

Read More
994 Words | 4 Pages

This belief dominated thoughts about gender roles from the 1700’s through the 1800’s in America. The concept of separate spheres divided gender roles into two different roles. The women's place was in the private sphere which was family life and her home. Women would have an average of seven kids and were expected to raise and nurture them. Meanwhile the men's place was in the public sphere.

Read More
1412 Words | 6 Pages

I chose to watch Modern Family; even though I could not hear anything I could clearly see the social construction of gender. The TV series “Modern Family” is a prime example when it comes to showing how gender is defined as a “social doing” based on the different roles and characteristics primarily used to characterize the different characters on the show. The definition of gender mainly comes from what people in society have assigned it to be, as portrayed on the show “Modern Family”, where the concept of gender as a social doing is advanced by boxing in its female and male characters into different traditional and stereotypical roles giving credence to the theory by West and Zimmerman as advanced in their article Doing Gender. Upon watching the show, I realized the consumerism culture has impacted the focus on feminism on popular

Read More
409 Words | 2 Pages

Within peers, social media, parents, and even schools. Men are expected to pay the check for the family, while women are presumed to balance work, and children. Since infancy, gender roles are shown in children’s toys. Boys have more advanced toys such as legos to build with, while young girls have more toys that require more imagination such as barbies, and kitchen sets. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ had examples of how younger girls were being raise to be a “proper southern-woman”.

Read More
241 Words | 1 Pages

I believe the roles assigned to men and women in American society are cultural. Because of traditional gender roles men and women were expected to fulfill. For example, traditionally men worked outside the home in the workforce and women were the caretakers of the home and the children. But the traditional setup of the home has changed dramatically where work outside of the home is not just for the man. Women have successful careers and men now share the responsibility of chores around the house as well as taking care of the children.

Read More
1876 Words | 8 Pages

Throughout history, women’s behavior and opportunities have had severe restraints placed on them by society. From strict rules on proper attire to entire guides on how married women should behave, what a woman did or how she acted was not up to her. Despite the advancements made in the 20th and 21st centuries, such as the 19th Amendment and the Equal Pay Act of 1963, many stereotypes still exist and impact the lives of women today. A contributing factor to this is the prevalence of these stereotypes in media from all centuries: literature from the 19th century shows women’s only responsibility to be caring for her family, as did television shows, like Leave it to Beaver, from the 1950s and 1960s. However, in recent years artists have been

Read More
248 Words | 1 Pages

The idea that gender difference is socially constructed is a view present in many philosophical and sociological theories about gender. According to this view, society and culture create gender roles, and these roles are prescribed as ideal or appropriate behaviour for a person of that specific gender. Stronger versions argue that the differences in behavior between men and women are entirely social conventions, whereas other versions believe that behaviour is defined by biological universal factors to some extent, but that social conventions also have some effect on gendered behaviour. Other theories claim that there are more genders than just the two most commonly accepted (male and female). It means that race is a social construction,

Read More
1577 Words | 7 Pages

It's unusual that in American culture carrying a shopping bag for a woman is polite, but carrying a handbag is a silent taboo that would indicate femininity. This further shows that women in American culture are seen as the less dominant or weaker sex. Although perceived as less dominant, women were the ones I observed carrying or strolling their children around, not men. This also reflects that within the nuclear family in American culture, women are the caregivers and nurturers. These connected behaviors reflect a single cultural rule about gender and implications of being associated with a particular gender as well as prove that culture is integrated.

Read More
465 Words | 2 Pages

Although gender roles have changed over time, where males and females have become more equivalent , a certain level of behaviors and tasks which are acceptable for men and women still exist today. Alternatively of women and men steadily playing the gender roles they always play, they should change it around and try to do something divergent when being defined in a category of gender roles. However, women are becoming equal to men in our generation. For instance , would be men can take supervision of the children when the women go to work. Women are more maverick that they don’t need to depend on a man.

Read More
1217 Words | 5 Pages

Gender roles in the past decades When watching The Simpsons family interact, their family depict what a ‘nuclear family’ look like with the father being the breadwinner and the mother staying at home doing the cooking and looking after the kids. It sends a message of what a ‘traditional’ family look/ed like in the past. “Gender roles are the product of the interactions between individuals and their environments, and they give individuals cues about what sort of behaviour is believed to be appropriate

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

Despite the creator’s of Modern Family effort to portray a progressive view of American families, the show still accentuates outdated female stereotypes and gender roles; reinforcing gender characteristics, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. In contrast to its title, Modern Family promotes traditional gender roles and stereotypes of women, which result in the portrayal of an inaccurate image of the female, and weakens the stance of women in today’s U.S. society. Gender stereotypes are prevalent throughout the Modern Family; the women are all portrayed as wives and mothers, promoting a continued male dominant family ideology. Claire and Gloria are throughout the show acting on our society’s “assumptions about women’s ‘appropriate’ roles” (Dow 19).

Read More

More about Gender Construction In American Culture

Related Topics

Open Document