Gender Roles

Sex - biological differences between men and women 

Gender - cultural expectations attached to being feminine or masculine

From a young age, our gender roles are set out and reaffirmed to us. Men are the breadwinners, powerful, strong and confident. Women are domestically useful and submissive to their men. Any wavering outside of these roles will have a man dubbed 'immasculine' and a woman 'a tom boy'. 

Boys from a young age are groomed subconsciously into a certain role. They're given science kits, footballs and tool kits and told they can be anything they wish to be. When they fall and cry they're told 'not to cry like a girl' as a tool to get them to jump up and brush themselves off. At the same time they see girls playing with dolls, prams and kitchen sets (obviously women belong in the kitchen, regardless of their age). As soon as they hit double figures, most of them are exposed to the world of porn. This is especially harmful. Porn does nothing but show women in a submissive role & is viewed as a documentary or real life rather than something that has been put together for entertainment purposes. The women in porn rarely look how 'real' women do (i.e. Botox, boob jobs, butt implants) and it simply does not portray sex in a real light. Men believe they need to act how the men do in porn, giving them unachievable expectations of themselves as well as their sexual partner.

Girls much in the same way are groomed to a role. Given dolls, kitchen sets and Disney princess dresses. From a young age, they take the mothering roll. The Disney films teach them that one day a man will come along and rescue them, giving them everything they've ever wanted or needed. 

    

The dolls and films show us we must be small, with long blonde hair and perky boobs to be attractive and porn/page 3 confirms this for us. We rarely see ethnic minorities used for these roles in films or for the toys we give our children. As we turn into our teenage selfs, bullies at school are quick to remind us if we are too big or in fact too small (people sometimes forget that girls who struggle to gain weight are also bullied for being 'too skeletal') and we soon become our own biggest critics. 

Now don't get me wrong, a majority of boys at age 5 or 6 will want to play football, and will want to be scientists or politicians. This is perfectly fine. However, what is wrong is to look at a young boy playing 'daddy' with a pram and doll and see this as strange. What is wrong is to look at a girl playing football or climbing a tree and dub her a 'tom boy' rather than a girl who likes to play football, or climb trees. 

It's exactly these gender roles that have told me time and time again that politics is not the right career for me. I would need to be more manly. More aggressive, and less caring. These traits would put me on the right footing (although, I could probably be more manly than a majority of the men in government, and still need a penis to be taken seriously).

       

These are your traditional gender roles - the ones on the right, held by all men (OBVIOUSLY, they cannot be any of the feminine traits) are what makes them better for politics (naturally). Even David Cameron has made sexist jibes, telling Angela Eagle during PMQs to 'calm down dear'. But obviously this is just a joke and women should lighten up (even though only 4 of the 22 cabinet ministers are women, and we have been disproportionality hit by cuts. Not to mention there are only 147 women in 650 seats in parliament). And this is just one example of a job where women are not seen as adequate.

Now I couldn't tell you the amount of times I've been asked  'You really do politics?' Or 'What do you study? Hair and make-up?' (assumably because I brush my hair and wear make up? Or maybe because I have tattoos and piercings? I don't know). I can't lie, I take great pride in smugly turning and saying 'actually no, I study politics' and watching their faces drop in shame of their assumptions. Is it simply because I am a woman and I shouldn't intellectually outsmart a man? We rarely see women in power and politics is mainly a male dominated world, which I accept. Though that doesn't mean I can't and won't be as successful as my male counterparts and I refuse to be turnt away on the basis of my sex. 

In recent years the gender roles we are expected to conform to have become more distinct. It is a well known fact that women do more housework and take on more of the child care needs than males. It's also a fact that women are paid less, and less likely to reach high positions in businesses (CEO, director). It is just as well known that girls do better than boys in school and in some parts of the UK young men are more likely to be unemployed than girls. Women who do well in business and sacrafice having a married life or children (until they reach where they want to be) are pitied and men who do the same are seen as smart and 'setting up a future'. 

So when some argue that feminism is redundant - this obviously is not the case. Though we also need to remember the boys we so often forget about. Boys are affected just as much as girls. They are shown images, and are expected to look and act a certain way in exactly the same way girls are, or face criticism. We often don't take boys as seriously, I suppose because we feel they are not as affected as we are. However unless these gender roles are dropped (BOYS stop telling me to get back in the kitchen, that is NOT my place. GIRLS stop waiting to become a WAG and go and earn your own money) we will always live in a society that criticises women for not acting as mothers and men for not being dominant and powerful. 

Isn't it weird we live in a society that encourages you to be different, but scorns you when you are?