Gender Roles and Peer Pressure

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Many people assume that America has minimal issues involving gender roles. It’s true that our culture has come a long way with gender role issues. Women and men are presented with the same opportunities whether its job related or socially related. For example, today women in America can obtain the same career as a man, or vice versa with men. Men can now be more open with their emotions or become stay at home dads if the couple agrees that’s the perfect solution, but these issues are still frown upon from our gender constructed culture. Although gender roles have come to a certain amount of change, Americas society has created greater peer pressure for females, culture shaped gender, and has allowed social media to establish the ideal male and female creating a harmful environment to grow up in.
It has become common today for kids, teens, and adults to experience some type of peer pressure, but females experience greater pressure. A female is expected to change when they become of age. Mary Pipher states, “She tried to keep up her old ways, but she was called a tomboy and chided for not acting more ladylike” (348). The essence of Pipher’s argument is that her cousin (Becky Thatcher) was experiencing teasing and peer pressure from her fellow friends for acting like herself and not like all the other girls. We also see that the boys were not pressured in this situation to change their ways only the girls. The reason for changes is because females can’t be seen as dominate or at all physical with each other in todays society. Pipher also states “she wore stylish clothes and watched from the sidelines as the boys acted and spoke” (348). We can see in Mary Piphers article that her cousin had to change her ways to please her friends an...

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...bility to express themselves.

Works Cited

Pipher, Mary. “Reviving Ophelia” Dialogues 7th ed. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Parson-Longman, 2011. 348-54. Print
Vincent, Norah. ”Self-Made Man.” Dialogues 6th ed. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Parson-Longman, 2011. 348-54. Print
Kimmel, Michael. “Masculinity as Homophobia” Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity (1994): 1-13. Print.
Haas, Cheryl J. Pawlow, Laura A. Pettibone, Jon. Segrist, Dan J. "An Intervention For The Negative Influence Of Media On Body Esteem." College Student Journal 46.2 (2012): 405. MasterFILE Complete. Tue. 22 Oct. 2013.
Hall, Stephens S. “The Bully in the Mirror” Dialogues 7th ed. Eds. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger. New York: Parson-Longman, 2011. 354-59. Print

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