We wrote papers for my comp class. I kinda like mine. It's interesting. Worth considering. And since I haven't posted in awhile, it's something. Right? Right?! hahaha. It's not that great in all reality. But whatever.
The Actions of Gender Roles in Modern Society
The buzz about gender roles in culture right now is mainly negative in the sense that we simply should not have them. The theory is that by impressing these gender roles upon the youth, they are confined to an ages-old set of expectations that should not need to be met in the era that we are in. However, it is my opinion that these gender roles are highly important to the well-being of children. I will be discussing first the necessity of gender roles on both small and large scales, the manipulations of those roles, and lastly the results of attempting to abolish them from society.
To begin with, why on earth could something so defining as gender roles be necessary to individuals as well as to society as a whole? Our culture is all about the freedom of expression right now, especially in regards to sexuality and the exploration of it. In this way, the trend has been an attempt to make people stop forcing gender roles on their children when they’re young. However, my judgment is that gender roles play a very important part in the psychological development of an individual, and that children need guidance to understand how to interact with their environment and their peers.
“Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy illustrates the expectations society places on females with the majority of her first stanza, “This girlchild was born as usual / and presented dolls that did pee-pee / and miniature GE stoves and irons / and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” (Piercy 1-4). Similarly, the societal expectations of boys are well-elucidated in “The Wussy Boy Manifesto” by Big Poppa E, who writes, “I tried to like hot rods and jet planes / and football and Budweiser poster girls, / but I never got the hang of it! / I don’t know what’s wrong with me…” (Poppa, 7-10).
These put very negative lights on gender roles that seem highly confining and mold-like, but they are psychologically natural for us in part because that is how our brains are genetically hardwired and partly because it is the image that society projects for us as “how you are supposed to be.” Simultaneously, a major part of our culture is trying to abolish these roles and tell children to choose their own gender without regard for familial or societal influence. This seems irrational and ridiculous, though, because gender is a role vastly influenced by environmental stigma.
Essentially, children are genetically hardwired from birth to have certain sex-based traits, but not in their gender. For example, maternal instincts are female sex-based traits, but the desire for dresses, frills, and ribbons is a gender role based action. But, because sex-based traits are internal, gender roles are necessary for the outward expression of those traits. Without that outward expression, attracting a mate is difficult because men are not reassured that a woman is capable of the responsibility of a wife.
What happens when these roles are manipulated is a plethora of interrelationship difficulties because subconscious desires have been subverted. For example, as described in further stanzas of the aforementioned Piercy poem, “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: / You have a great big nose and fat legs” (Piercy 5-6). Following these lines, the girlchild of discussion, who was perfectly normal and fine, “…went to and fro apologizing. / Everybody saw a fat nose on thick legs” (Piercy 10-11). Finally, she gave in and altered herself via plastic surgery to make herself ‘good enough’ for society.
This is a manipulation of the female gender role given to us, because our role has shifted from being capable of home-making and –maintaining, child-bearing and mothering, being in need of—or at least in desire of male companionship and protection (a type of ownership that is ‘politically incorrect’ to label such due to the feminist movements in the country)—in the way that we are expected to look a relatively specific way, and if we do not fit that mold provided for our altered role, we are expected to use whatever means necessary (i.e. plastic surgery) to make ourselves into said mold. This is a practice that toys with the variety of desirable phenotypes (the observable genetically-controlled traits of an organism) ; prospective mates are thrown off by the illusions our technology provides us, thereby providing couples unrealistic expectations of the physical attributes of their offspring. Even though the physical attributes of an individual only influence gender very little (in the way that women with very masculine features have a higher frequency of masculine tendencies than women with very petite features).
Furthermore, “What I Have Been” by Guy Peckham illuminates a male perspective on the inability to meet societal expectations with the following:
“From a solitary tower high above me
float the faint voices
of my parents,
drifting down like black snow.
‘He’s so timid.’
‘He’s so shy.’
‘He withdraws from others.’
‘We’re so embarrassed.
What shall we do?’
I would run from this house,
were it not for the chains of shame
anchoring me solidly to the bedpost.” (Peckham 6-18)
What Peckham is saying here is that he was always expected to be exuberantly confident, or at the very least confident enough to initiate interactions, and because he was neither capable of the action or of the ability to outgrow his shyness, he was so ashamed of himself that he found he could not even run to hide. Big Poppa E adds to this perspective, but with a different attitude:
“you may see 65 inches of wussy boy
standing in front of you,
but my steel-toed soul is
ten foot tall and bullet proof!
bring the pain, punk,
beat the shit out of me,
show all the people in this bar
what a real man can do
to a shit-talking wussy boy like me
but you’d better remember
my bruises will fade
my cuts will heal,
my scars will shrink and disappear,
but my poem
about the pitiful, small, helpless
cock-man oppressor you really are
will last
forever.” (Poppa 72-89)
“The Wussy Boy Manifesto” really takes that same inability to meet expectations that Peckham faced but turns it around and uses it to stand on and fight back. He dares those that would call him a ‘wussy boy’ to really ‘teach him a lesson’ and ‘prove their masculinity’ by beating up a guy that realistically poses them no threat. Clearly he is not looking to start a fight, nor is he attempting to steal someone’s girlfriend, and he isn’t getting into the middle of anybody’s business; he just simply isn’t like them and dares people to use it as an excuse to oppress him. Peckham chose to be ashamed of his inability to conform; Big Poppa E revels in it.
This leads me into my final point, regarding the detriment to society from the degradation of gender roles. In a society that has broken down the roles of gender, it has inevitably broken down the roles of itself because it creates an entire faction of people that are dissatisfied with what they have, whatever that may be. With neither males nor females raised in this new universe knowing what is expected of them, nor what to expect from others, obviously no expectations can actually be met from either end of a relationship. Therefore, regardless of what happens, especially within a marriage, both spouses feel as if they are getting the ‘muddy end of the stick,’ so to speak, because both have been taught throughout life that it simply is not their job to take care of everything.
Because society has blurred the roles of men and women, nobody is entirely sure what exactly their role is, so when they get into the age at which they enter marriages, they have lost both their, and their spouse’s role. Because there is no clean-cut division of roles, now there is dissatisfaction because the responsibilities of marriage are difficult to divide. Whose job is it to cook, clean, perform home and yard maintenance, or take care of the vehicles—especially if both own one?
Individuals who have been raised with an understanding of their gender role have no problem shifting into it when that time comes; individuals that were not raised with a set role and with the concept that established roles are automatically treated as wrong have inaccessible expectations of what happens next when the age of marriage hits.
The concept of “‘me’ versus ‘we’” brings into play the problems regarding instinctual activities. For example, men instinctively leave the task of child-raising to women, who instinctively want to raise them—though this instinct has been highly challenged in the last few decades—but now, women don’t have the necessary time to do so because of their shifted role as a bread-winner.
Thus, when individuals do not understand their roles within the unit of a marriage, it is even more difficult to understand their role in society. What career does one pursue when you are not sure if you, or your spouse, has to make the most time for your children? What type of laws do you support if you are not sure how exactly they might affect your relationship and its orb of effect? Most importantly, how can society function when it requires an interaction of people who are raised to be so egocentric that the ability to view society as a single unit is lost?
In conclusion, it is my honest and unalterable opinion that gender roles are very necessary to individuals as well as to society, that manipulating roles is unhealthy for one’s well-being, and that the degradation of gender roles is a major detriment to society in the way that it removes the ability to function as a single unit. These notions are supported through the poems heretofore discussed and, at the very most basic of notions lies the sentiment quoted by Big Poppa E, “I am human and I need to be loved / just like everybody else does” (Poppa 47-48).
Works Cited
Peckham, Guy.“What I Have Been” (2003). 2011 Class Anthology.Print
Piercy, Marge.“Barbie Doll” (1999). 2011 Class Anthology.Print
E, Big Poppa.“wussy boy manifesto” (1999). 2011 Class Anthology.Print
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