By Abigail Wurster Women are weak and men can’t have emotions. Women are the homemakers and men are the full time workers. These ideas are essentially what gender roles tell us. 41% of men and women believe that a woman should stay home with kids, while the father goes out and creates the income for the home. This is completely flawed as women can do the same things men can. We can work, and we can be strong. Men can stay at home with the kids, and men can have feminine qualities without risking their masculinity. Gender roles are strongly forced upon a child during crucial developmental years, which can be constraining to children. When you go into a store, the toy section is split up into two sections. The pink, frilly side geared towards girls, and the blue, industrial side geared towards boys. The girls section has play kitchen sets and baby dolls. The boys section is full of superheroes and toy cars.
In fact, in order to battle these set guidelines by society, Target eliminated designated gender sections, which gives children the ability to live freely without restrictions on their imagination. It caused an uproar among conservatives that couldn’t understand the fact that girls can play with trucks and boys can play with dolls. I, personally, don’t understand why that’s hard to understand, but being brainwashed by the constant duties that need to be met to validate your gender makes it harder to accept, I presume. Focusing solely on gender roles, both men and women are affected by this nearly equally. In the US, more women get custody of the children during a divorce than the father because women are seen as the caretakers. Who says men can’t be what the court calls “the best interest for the child?” It’s bogus and neglects the fact that the father could be the primary caregiver. Gender roles are incredibly harmful because it binds men and women to strict guidelines that can hurt a family. Gender roles are products of society.
4 Comments
Anon
10/26/2016 01:51:43 pm
Every time I read one of these opinion pieces, it'seems like subjecting myself to torture
Reply
Anon
11/2/2016 12:14:46 pm
That's some real constructive criticism..
Reply
Anon
2/20/2017 11:22:12 am
stop
Reply
Anon
2/20/2017 11:24:33 am
I lost all hope in this school after reading this "article."
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Elena Caputo
Hi! My name is Elena, and I'm a senior at Wilson and one of the Editors of the Editorial section. If you have any questions or ideas or if you want to write, email me at [email protected]! Olivia MonosHello! My name is Olivia and I'm a junior this year, and one of the editors of the Editorial section! I'm really excited to write for the Paw Print again this year!
Archives
December 2019
Categories |