Ask Your Question today
I feel that deviating from your respective gender roles that society predisposes on you is normal but when doing so, judgement arises and a whole bunch of other negative things happen. Is it normal to feel like we all need to drop these guidelines and be who we are regardless of external pressures?
I grew up as a tomboy and it felt normal to me. When I tried to assert as much sexual freedom as the guys, I got suspended from school. But I hate the fact that now it's not enough for a woman to be the nurturer, mother, wife, cook, homemaker, housekeeper, dressmaker, cook, hostess, gardener and property manager. My friend just had a baby and now she's starting dentistry school. She doesn't even feel like she can enjoy being a mom. So I don't know. Gender stereotypes are restrictive but they can also be comforting. They are tried and tested. But I speak from the comfortable vantage point of the heterosexual. I can tell you for sure that I would not have survived the bullying and gay-bashing that goes along with being a homosexual teenager, particularly in small town USA. I would have taken my own life. I'm not being dramatic - I'm just being realistic. When I think about what some kids have to put up with .... it breaks my heart.
I would say that that gender roles ruined society for everyone. Is that the same thing?
That's just what people want to hear.
You don't think of consequence much do you? Without gender roles society would have collapsed, you also wouldn't have been born.
Fuck.
Gender roles are an outdated concept. In the early days of humanity they were useful, but today we don't have a use for them. Society changes and evolves, and certain concepts stop being useful in the mainstream as others take their place.
Ofcourse we do, nothing has changed about human nature, so the same rules and guidelines for a surviving and functioning society are still needed, and always will be.
We have not become more advanced in any way, bar technologically. Hence, it can't be an outdated concept.
The only thing that has grown is complacency, the same idiotic complacency that brought you to believe what you're saying.
If anything you're living proof that people need as much direction as possible to help combat their naiveity.
The only thing outdated in this respect, is your brain.
Everyone with a clue will note that the functioning of society is cyclical, not progressive.
In Western society at least, technology has changed enormously, so the challenges humanity must face have changed enormously as well.
Our priorities are no longer defending our tribes from wild beasts or finding enough water hunting enough and food to feed ourselves; those things are taken care of by the wonders of technology. Allowing men to cover hunter/gatherer and women to cover child-rearing skill sets was benficial in some societies in the past, but society is now more complex than that. Those skill sets are covered by a small group of people: farmers, teachers, soldiors etc. That leaves a huge amount of the population spare on jobs that are not at all key to our survival, but key to our enjoyment of society and living.
The priorities of those people should be to improve society more broadly, and neither men nor women have the broader array of skill sets needed for that within their traditional gender roles. Thus, those gender roles must be dispensed of for the better, more efficient use of human resources. Why allot men and women to specific roles when the vast majority of jobs are not suited to this?
For the progression of society to be cyclical, it must progress within those cycles for it to then fall back down. Everyone with a clue will note this.
You act as if my naivety is any more detrimental than your cyncism.
The rules for survival have changed because the challenges we face are different to those we faced 10 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, 10000 years ago.
Lol @ petty insults.
Apologies for lack of any paragraph structuring, it's not so easy when you're typing on your phone.
"For the progression of society to be cyclical, it must progress within those cycles for it to then fall back down. Everyone with a clue will note this."
Actually it falls at almost the same rate it advances, a constant cycle. Hence why people still act like savages, nothing ever changes. That's why the roles are important, they have existed since the dawn of time; cavemen had gender roles.
Saying that right now reflects some magical different society to the ones previous, is moronic at best. It's not outdated, because the term "outdated" doesn't even exist in this sense within the concept of society.
A thousand years from now, we will be the same backpedaling masses with the same gender roles, as we always have.
There is only one way to exist as a species, and alas it has been chosen. While I would like to agree with you, and I like the idea, it simply isn't logical.
Where I live, all men have to join the army. If they're not physically or psychologically capable to do so, they have to pay a lot of money every year. Women can join the army too if they want, because we're so emancipated - But of course they don't have to.
So as a man: Yes, I hate gender roles.
I find it ironic, given that the work that are male dominated are still a gender role issue, as in men should have to do that work, not women, but if we done the same to the female gender, you're sexist...
I disagree. If a person does not identify with their own gender then it can lead to problems. As for people just changing their gender-role this is not possible, it develops at the age of 3 and is pretty much locked in for life.
You mean their biological gender is locked in.... Are you aware that there are many many people who are much older than 3 who don't feel they belong as "male" or "female", or even feel born in the wrong body because of their gender identity?!
I'm more than aware, I carried out an experiment specifically studying the physiological effects gender-role has on the body. Your point is one of the problems which arise from the lack or incorrect gender-role being asigned which adds to my point it is important for gender-roles to be forced upon people.
What would be the correct gender-roles to force upon people? Should we go back to the days women stay at home and are outcasted or even killed if they become too involved in the world of science or their career? And men should be looked down upon and ridiculed if they show too much interest in their children or interior decorating? What other results did you get from your experiment? What was the experiment itself? I'm curious.
Like I said, gender-role develops early on in life, it has nothing to do with what happens to the person when they grow up so no I'm not dictating what any women should do with their life, just that they should be brought up to be feminine. One set of my results showed that the more masculine a person was then the higher their pain tolerance and thresholds were regardless of whether they were male or female.
Well, I don't know anything about you results or whether or not you mean physically or mentally, but biologically it has been proven that women can take more physical pain then men (hence: child bearing)
Also, I'm going to have to disagree with you simply because everyone is different. To group all women and all men in one catagory and say there the same would be as foolish as grouping all atheist and all christians and saying they're the same. Everyone is different. Growing up as a child, I didn't have much interest and playing with dolls, I was more interested in hot wheels. Although I like getting dirty with the boys, I also enjoyed princess movies. I say this because, there really is no "masculine" and "feminine" there is only people and we all think and feel differently. I will not deny majority, but again, to group everyone in one would be foolish. Everyone grows up differently. As a child, we all experience things differently and have a differnt view of the world.
For me, being in gender roles would be terrible. For one, women are often expected to be these pretty, motherly things. Well, I always thought that men were the more beautiful sex and I hate kids and never want to have them. In gender roles, women are expected to make money while women stay at home. I always visualize myself as the breadmaker in the family as I've always had big dreams for myself to own my own company and be successful. I never want to be expected to stay at home, and while I wouldn't mind a man who makes money, for me, a man does not become more or less attractive whether he works at McDonald's or is the CEO of a big business.
I simply believe that we, as human beings, have evolved to not need gender roles anymore. We all have different mind set, we are all developing differently, and to catorgize us my gender would be a sin against me. I don't want to be judged off of my looks as I don't care what I look like, and I am more than a child-bearing doll.
For crying out loud.... I was always brought up to be female, but what about those who have these arbitrary gender roles forced on them and STILL feel unhappy?!
What are the guidelines? How our fathers raised us to be, or our environment? I think its the whole nurture vs. nature thing all over again. Life doesn't come with an instruction book but it does come with alot of judgemental people. Society has a mould sure, but once you do away with social judgements you can really free yourself.
Be who you want to be, whomever that is, and follow your bliss. Don't let anyone or anything dictate how you should look, act or think just because of what genitals you were born with between your legs!
Society is the biggest bane on anyones existence it's moulds you in to something you are not wanting to be.
Yes; I it is normal to think that way, and I, for one, feel the same. I think that it is foolish to group all women in one group and it is ignorant to group all men in one group. I think everyone is different and we should all be who we are regardless of gender, race, religion, sexuality, or whatever.
I, for one, will not deny that I am not lady like. However, I do not consider myself to be masculine either. In certain things I'm more masculine and in certain things I am more feminine. I do not seek a man who is successful with money. The main reason for this is because I often visualize myself as being the bread winner in the family. Now this is not to say that I want a lazy man who will not get off his ass and get a job but it's simply to say that I don't think men have to be the one making all of the money in the family. I grew up in a house where both my parents attributed to the finances, both having a stable job. I like that. I often invision myself being successful and therefore I don't need a man making money for me. I can make my own damn money.
No; I don't believe in gender roles. I honestly believe that we should be and do whatever we want. If a woman wants a hard working "man's" job then she should be allowed to get it as a man should be allowed to be a stay at home father if he wishes. I also don't think that women should be expected to be lady-like, wear dresses, and always look cute just like I don't think that all men should have to open doors for women and pay for lunch. Hell, I don't even think that women are the fairer sex, I perosally find men to be more beautiful than women. However society, and I will say evolution, has its way of setting "rules" down for men and women. I'm a feminist, I won't deny it, and I believe in equality between both sexes. I think that men should be able to do whatever they want and women should be able to do whatever they want.
All in all, we are all different regardless of sex, religion, race, etc. and I don't think we should be grouped into any group. I think everyone should just be themselves and society should understand that gender doesn't necessarily make the person.
+1 Men are more beautiful than women. A man doesnt need make up to look attractive. This is just nature in the animal kingdom, especially the bird kingdom, the males are always more beautiful as they want to attract females. I dont know why in modern society it became that women are the ones to have to look good and attract men...its against nature...but whatever...