Gender Roles for Women

When constructing any nation there must be different levels of participation in order to make that nation function. Without workers a society would fall apart. Each role is equally as important. There must be leaders and there must be followers. The question is what qualifies a person as a leader and what makes a person a follower? Some people would answer gender, social status, or race. Indeed, gender is a huge factor in deciding who does what task in a society. Women are excluded from certain roles in the nation's military. They are also defined and almost condemned to certain roles in the public and private spheres of our society.

Women are often included in the nation in tasks that are not considered difficult. It is almost by default that women get to be in high places. This does not mean that women are not equally as qualified as they men that they are competing against. This phenomenon is brought up in Judith Lorber's article. She quotes Mencher saying "Wherever a task is done by women it is considered easy, and where it is done by men it is considered difficult." Lorber goes on to speak of tribal behavior. She writes, "A gathering and hunting society's survival usually depends on the nuts, grubs, and small animals brought in by the women's foraging trips, but when the men's hunt is successful, it is the occasion for a celebration." (Lorber, 23) Though he said this was a common belief held in Southern India and also in ancient civilizations, I do not believe that India is the only one with this belief. Many American men feel threatened by a woman performing their job. It makes them feel weak or insignificant. Men are supposed to be strong providers, according to binary logic, so when a woman can fend for herself the man feels obsolete.

Women are often forced into roles in which they do not feel comfortable. For example in the piece by Jaclyn Gellar, she advocates that marriage is often misunderstood and misinterpreted by the women and the society in order to 'trick' women into the role. Women are made to believe that one of you main purposes on this planet is to find a man and fall in love. This is said to be happiness. Women are made to feel inadequate if they do not find happiness in this form. She states, "Each woman [should] view herself as potentially or actually part of a marital unit - rather than a link between past and future generations of women." (Geller, 287) Women are being clouded into believing that they must have more loyalty to man made societal values, rather than their genetic connections to the women who came before them. They are told what they are supposed to value or desire. In this same way, women are told what they should desire in the public sphere. From the time young girls are in kindergarten they are taught what roles are 'correct' for them to take on. The young girls learn to live up to these roles in order to not feel ostracized from their gender, when they want to play with G.I. Joe instead of Barbie. Many parents impose certain gender behaviors on their children in order to 'help' them grow as a female. I say 'help' because as we saw in the video about the hermaphrodites, parents are doing what they believe is best for the child in question. They want their child to grow up 'normal' and within the bounds of societies stereotypes. But as we also learned in the movie, parents and doctors are often mislead and do more harm than good in the long run. It was said that "gender can be changed within the first 18 months of age."(Film, 10/6) The interview with the woman who was born a man and had her clitoris removed proves otherwise. She said that she wished her parents had just let her live outside of the norm. This was ironic because in the long run she looked like a normal woman, but the procedure cause her to not feel or function like a woman. This took away her rights before she even