Society's expectations

We were discussing the topic of gender roles in educational psychology the other day, and my teacher brought up some very interesting points. She brought up a point of how we treat boys and girls differently. Most societies have expectations of how boys, girls, women, and men "should" think and behave. For example, in the U.S., men are expected to be strong, aggressive, and decisive, and traditionally women are expected to be weak, passive, and indecisive. Well, I think that is crap! These expectations or stereotypes combine to form gender roles, which are the set of social norms that dictate what is socially regarded as appropriate female and male behavior (McCammon, 267). Well, today of course traditional gender role stereotypes are changing because women are now more expected to be more ambitious in seeking a career, and men are now more expected to be more caring and nurturing. In my opinion....I think it just depends on the person, not whether you're male or female. Each individual has a different personality, different wants and needs. It should not matter if a male is sensitive or if a female is decisive and takes charge.

I often notice how some males try to be a macho (including my lovely boyfriend) probably that is the stereotype that society labels males. It's the way we raise our children, that is the problem! Now think about this...if your little girl fell and hit the coffee table, a lot of parents would be like, "Oh honey, are you okay?" and they baby their precious little daughter, and sometimes it gets as ridiculous as the parent saying, "bad table!" as if it's the table's fault, and there's no way their daughter could have ran into the table. But if a little boy falls down or runs into the coffee table and starts to cry, then usually parents say, "Oh, you'll be okay, you're a big boy, don't cry." Or a parent will go as far as saying, "Don't be a baby, show me those muscles." It's the way we raise our kids by treating them this way. You expect a girl to act one way and the boy to act another way, and thus begins a whole new cycle of stereotypes and gender roles. Society's gender roles influence pretty much every aspect of our public and private lives, and that's just sad.