Do gender roles still have relevence in our society today?

Great Debates
1

I was just thinking that now that we’ve reached an…Age of Enlightenment, if you will, we (or many of us), have come to the conclusion that equality is something to be enforced at many costs. That is to say, humans are all equal, entitled to rights, etc. and race/religion/etc. has nothing to do with how we should be treated.

With that in mind, do gender roles still mean anything? Yes, on a practical level, men can’t have babies, and women generally don’t have the same physical strength as men, but I mean on a cultural level. In the past, women were considered the weaker sex, suited for raising children/nurturing, and men considered strong/practical, etc. Today, however, we’re less likely to stereotype- though there are still narrow minded people around.

When raising kids, is it better to differentiate based on sex, or to basically give them few if any restrictions on what they can do? Personally I feel that despite the fact that there are differences in the way men and women think/behave, that this shouldn’t hinder people’s roles. Assuming we’re not talking about things that are physically difficult or downright impossible for either gender (giving birth, for example), in an everyday setting, both genders should have equal opportunities.

To broaden the question, what does it mean to be a male/female now? I suppose if we were still living back in the day before medical advancements and technology, back in the so called state of nature, we’d revert back to our biological roles. But now that we’re beyond that, to what degree should we differentiate ourselves by sex? (To make things more simple, at least to start with, let’s assume we’re just talking about a more westernized culture, such as the U.S., in the present.)

2

To me, stereotypes re what’s proper, appropriate, allowed for males and for females are a straightjacket we’re in the process of escaping from.

3

Equality doesn’t have to mean that women are just female men (or vice versa); there are things that women tend to be better suited to doing than men (and vice versa) and there will always be exceptions to those sort of generalisations too; I think the right place to aim for is somewhere that nobody will say ‘hey, you can’t do that, you’re a wo/man’ except in such rare circumstances as a person trying to enter the wrong door of a public convenience.
It’s just as pointless to stop women from becoming coal miners and construction workers (if they want to, that is) as it would be to insist that exactly 50% of coal miners and construction workers should be female. Let people do what they want and evaluate them on performance if necessary.

4

Mangetout: why do we need segregated “places of public convenience”? Doesn’t that inconvenience people who, for whatever reason, fall between the lines? (In some states, it is illegal for me to use a public restroom.)

5

Perhaps we don’t actually need gender-specific toilets, perhaps it’s just prejudice on my part to have assumed that most women generally don’t want to walk past a row of stinking urinals or that men generally don’t want women walking past them when they are standing there, waving their genitals about while trying to sink the cigarette butt. I don’t know.

6

Biologically and psychologically, men and women are diferent. The most obvious diference being that women can’t use a urinal with any degree of ease and men have no use for a breast feeding station or tampon dispenser.

As for people who fall in the “middle”, there is no such thing unless you have some kind of medical condition. If a person wants to dress themselves up like Cher and call themself a woman, go right ahead. That doesn’t make it so.

You can’t discuss gender roles without talking about physical limitations. Unless you want to create some bizare social experiment that forces women to occupy 50% of all jobs, women and men will each be suited to specific occupations. For example, yes there are women construction workers, firemen and policemen. Can the average woman perform these tasks as well as the average man. No. A 120lb girl is just not as effective at carrying rebar, busting thru doors or wrestling a 200 lb suspect as a 190lb man.

7

From Joe Jackson’s Real Men

I happen to be in the (I assume) minority of people who find a lot of value in gender roles. Or, let me rephrase that a bit: I believe that some gender roles are close to being inherent in our nature, and it’d be healthier to embrace them than to deny them.

8

[Overlooking the use of the word “girl” where “woman” would have been more appropriate . . .]

The point surely is that one of the candidates for the job is female and the other male, but that one weighs 120lb and the other 190lb, and their ability to bear weight varies correspondingly.

Yes, jobs which require the ability to bear weight are likely to have more male than female occupants, but the material factor is weight-bearing ability. What has this to do with gender roles?

9

I agree here–esp. when it comes to the military. I think women should have to register for selective service, same as men, and there should be size (or strength) classifications for various positions–i.e., if you’re a 100-lb. pipsqueak, male or female, you can fly a chopper or a plane or drive a tank or truck, direct air traffic, run the radio, etc.; 130 lbs., you can operate artillery (land or sea-based), be a mechanic, etc.; 150 lbs. and up, you go in full pack, or whatever else they need. Otherwise, who cares if you’ve got a chick flying a plane, firing a howitzer, or slogging through the mud with 80 pounds of gear on her back?

10

Mangetout: It is true that I don’t want to smell men’s pee all over the floor. I suppose it’s too much to expect men to learn how to pee.

That aside, assuming there is just cause to segregate bathroom facilities, should they be segregated by sex or by gender (Many people, including apparently msmith357, refuse to recognize that there is a difference.) And if we do segregate by sex or by gender, how do we deal with people who fall “outside the box” (again, ignoring msmith357’s counterfactual and bigoted assertion that there are no such people)?

11

Whatever

The point is that there are very real diferences between men and women.

Yes. I refuse to recognize that there is a diference. If you take off your dress and you have a penis, use the boys room. If you have a vagina, use the girls (or womens if you prefer) room. The public bathrooms are designed for your biological, not your psychologic needs.

If you have both sets of equipment, well…I don’t know what to tell you. In any event there aren’t enough people like that to justify building a third “Other” bathroom with a big questionmark on it.

12

Actually, I’d take issue with this. Ever look at the women’s magazines at the supermarket? About ninety percent of the content is devoted to brides, babies, beauty, and health-and-safety-related paranoia, and almost all of the advertisers exploit gender stereotypes to the hilt. Popular culture in general does little to challenge traditional gender roles, aside from casting the occasional gorgeous Hollywood babe as a rocket scientist. A minority of the population – admittedly, a visible and vocal minority – has made a conscious effort to question these roles, but the culture as a whole still accepts them.

[Anecdote] Last year, one of my students turned in an academic paper in which she stated: “Women tend to be very romantic and are constantly seeking to have somebody to have romance with. They will do anything to keep their relationship alive and often lie to their partners. They do this because they are naturally insecure about themselves.” This passed without comment from the author’s four groupmates in draft workshop, except one of them wrote “Good and true paragraph” in the margin. All five students involved were female. This is a fairly typical experience with freshman students, even today; very few young people encounter any challenges to such ideas until they reach university age. [/anecdote]

For this reason, I’m suspicous of anybody who claims to have discovered a biological, rather than cultural, basis for gender roles; as yet, nobody has grown up without a great deal of cultural baggage in this area. Even the children of parents who try to raise them without gender stereotypes get a hefty dose from television, teachers, other children’s parents, and other parents’ children.

This brings me to another point in the OP, the one about raising kids. Treating children of different sexes as equally as possible is a good start, but it’s not enough. If I ever have kids, I’ll also do my best to encourage them to think about and re-think some of the attitudes they receive from popular culture. (No TV but PBS until you’re six years old, darling … well, all right, but we’re going to sit down and talk about the commercials afterwards. I do worry sometimes that I’ll go off the deep end and turn out like the mother in About A Boy, but at least I know better than to trust in my own hair-cutting skills.)

Sorry, rambling. Anyway, my main point is that outside of a few sub-groups, ideas about gender have changed less than most people assume, but that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t change. It simply takes more effort, on more fronts, than we’ve put in yet.

13

Thats not true. The whole basis for seperating the bathrooms in between men and women is psychological.

14

There is no sound biological reason for segregated bathrooms.

15

msmith, referring to a woman as a girl is akin to referring to a man as a boy. Both are diminutive, and demeaning. I’m surprised you don’t recognize this.

There are real physical (and other) differences between men and women, it’s true. However, I think (and other posters seem to be saying) that we shouldn’t judge people on the basis of their gender* but rather on their capabilites – on the basis of their selves. It’s sexist to assume that a potential hiree is limited by their gender.
Unisex restrooms would seem (to me) to be the only solution to the problem, but perhaps I’m missing some?

Eonwe, I’d like to agree that some gender roles are inherent to our natures and are healthy to embrace. I assume you’re talking about general thought patterns, value systems, hormonal differences, and the like (and I hope I haven’t offended anybody with this!), but could you expand on that?

Zoggie, I think I agree with you – ideally, sex should be no more a discriminant than race or religion. (Catholics generally don’t eat meat on Fridays, men generally can’t have babies, and neither means that I’ll think of you any differently.)
*Or sex? I’m sorry, KellyM, I can’t remember the difference.

16

StephenG, in this context, either will do. We should not judge people (for the purpose of employment, at least) on the basis of either their gender or their sex, or on how much the two are in congruence with one another.

On the restroom issue: I am loathe to give up sex-segregated restrooms because I don’t want to have to use a bathroom that men have been pissing all over. Short of mandating that men sit down to pee, I think providing restrooms in pairs is a good thing – but which one you use should be a matter of etiquette, not of law. Criminal liability should flow not merely from being in the wrong restroom, but from doing something inappropriate while in the restroom (whether the right one or the wrong one).

17

I should have known better than to have posted in this thread; I try to express what seems to me a balanced and fair viewpoint on the subject, only to be nitpicked on an absurd and irrelevant detail. Consider my input to this thread retracted.

18

Thanks for all the responses.

Fretful Porpentine- That’s a good point. Stereotypes do exist. What I was trying to say is people have gotten a bit more open minded, but I guess there are still ignorant stereotypes out there. It would be nice if kids could grow up free of what society dictates are feminine and masculine.

Eonwe- You said:

I’d also like to hear more about this. That is, which roles are you specifically talking about?

I know that there are differences. I know this is a generalization, but women do tend to be better at verbal/emotional skills, that kind of thing. But then for years it was considered strange for girls to be good at math/science, so when someone wants to enter a field of study, whether it’s English or Biology, whether they’re male or female should have nothing to do with it. Rather, their ability should be the only important thing.

msmith- You brought up physical skills. But if we only allow those who are capable (that is, a woman who wants to be a construction worker/part of the army must have the strength to do so), then there really isn’t much of a problem.

But do these roles translate over to a non-physical professional world? Can we have female CEOs and male kindergarden teachers? Can we have women who want to pursue a career and men willing to be primary caregivers, or does that go right against our biology? I’d hate to think that there are boundaries we can’t explore or knock down just because of our biology.

19

Two points:

First, I’m feeling a little like we’re drifting slightly from the OP. The question, “do gender roles still have relevence in our society today,” IMO, is a very different one from, “should/do we discriminate in the workplace based on gender.” I think that just about everyone here would say that yes it’s perfectly fine for a woman to be a CEO and a man to be a kindergarden teacher. What I wonder is whether we, in an effort to bring equality to the workforce, discourage anyone from being a caregiver at home, or from being passive. In other words, are we just trying to make women act like men in order that they fit into a business/professional culture that has traditionally been run exclusively by men? Is the role that women used to play in society now looked down on and discouraged, whomever is doing it (whether it’s the man or woman who stays home with the kids, for example)?

Second, in response to StephenG and Zoggie’s question, I guess what I mean is this: Being a man, I tend to feel a certain affinity with other men. My relationships with men are different than my relationships with women, and I think that’s a good thing. I think that there often is a tendancy (I know this might sound a little like a reactionary-conservative backlash towards feminism, which it is not meant to be) to gloss over differences, and to discourage behaviour that is overtly connected with gender (ie, "Eonwe, you should treat so-and-so just like ‘one of the guys,’ 'cause to do otherwise is marginalizing her). I just value the different perspective and attitude I get from everybody, man or woman, and cringe a little when things start to homoginize.

20

My own anecdote:
I have 3 kids, 2 boys and a girl. They don’t ever watch anything except PBS on TV, and very little even of that. They don’t go to school (yet) so they don’t have the teacher influence.

I’ve been amazed at what an early age they showed gender differences. The boys were fascinated with trucks at even less than 1 year old. The girl is more interested in stuffed animals and playing house.

This could easily be just individual differences, except that so many of my friends have found the same thing. Even my best friend who is a psych prof specializing in teaching students about the myths of gender differences, has been rather shocked at how much her 3 boys are so stereotypically boyish.

What does this mean? I agree with what has been said that we need to judge people on their abilities instead of their genitals. Most men are stronger than most men. However this doesn’t mean that any individual woman might not be stronger that any individual man.

But I don’t discount that boys and girls are usually different, even from birth. I think manculine and feminine stereotype have quite a bit of truth to them.

But that doesn’t matter. If there is one girl who is strong and tough enough, she should have just as must access to the football team as the strong and tough boys.