Family Values and Gender Roles

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Family Values and Gender Roles

Family is the basis of life and is a basis for what a person learns as they grow into adulthood. Family Values are what your family teaches you. Family is similar to school in the fact that your family teaches you about the world and how every human interacts with others. Gender Roles are the hierarchical basis of a family; the father is the bread winner, mother makes sure dinner is on the table at eight p.m., and the children are straight A students and incredibly popular. I believe that gender roles are not influenced by family values; I believe gender roles are nothing but prejudices under a different name.

Gender roles seek to put a person into a mold of what someone else sees them to be. For example in "Keep Within Compass," it is obvious that a man drew the plate because the woman is depicted to be genteel, sedate, and almost air headed in appearance, with no voice of her own. This is a prime example of the despicable properties placed in gender roles. Girls cannot play football and guys cannot be cheerleaders. The gender roles are defining what is right and what is wrong within society. For example, in the "Keep Within Compass" plate, the woman is wrong if she does not conform to the ideal of society.

A common family value is to treat others the way you wish to be treated. Why is this never the case when someone is different from what a person considers to be normal? When one considers homosexuals, do all the people around them treat them in a fair manner? Much of the time, people treat them differently because they do not fit the typical gender roles defined by society. So, a prejudiced gender role cause problems between ...

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...ns. Family values and gender roles are different because family values teaches a person that everyone has something to offer, while gender roles only seek to narrow a person's mind and influence them to see the differences above the similarities in everyone they encounter. I think gender roles should be done away with because without the gender roles, many disputes such as racism and sexuality would not be the issues they are today. So without gender roles, anything is possible; girls can play football and guys can be ballerinas without fear of being looked down upon. Without gender roles, the world would be an open book of possibilities to all who live in it.

Work Cited

"Keep Within Compass." Creating America: Reading and Writing Arguments. Eds. Joyce Moser and Ann Watters. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002. (219-220).

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