Germany's Sex and Gender Roles
What is it that makes up our identities? I mean us, not only Americans but other cultures as well, the entire world. When tracing back my family tree I learned that I am of half-German descent with a quarter French and another quarter Irish in me. I also think it is safe to say that a majority of the population reading this is of European lineage. I don’t say this to discriminate, only to be specific in the telling of my story. The story I am about to recite is about humans and about one of our basic needs for survival. Some will argue, saying that sex is not at all a basic need but let’s face it, without sex you wouldn’t be reading this intriguing article right now, and the world would be less fulfilled without the human reproduction process.
Now that I have probably scared off the more ethical readers with my dirty talk I shall proceed. My story deals with the sex and gender roles that occur in the country of Germany. Why did I choose to study these roles in Germany? Well, it seemed like a good place to start, and being that I am 50% German maybe I can relate to some of these roles. We’ll see.
When one chooses to study the sex and gender roles of a country it is quite easy for me to relate to the male population of the region. I believe that all heterosexual males desire the same common denominator from a relationship with another women. Yes, companionship is part of the desire but I have to be honest here, sex plays a major role in finding the right woman. So that was easy, I think most men in Germany agree with those two easy-to-read sentences stated above. Now here comes the difficult part, trying to figure out what women desire in a relationship. Being...
... middle of paper ...
...n feel like she is in good hands. Can men who do housework protect their wives just as good? Maybe, but the West German women subconsciously saw these men as less “macho” than their eastern countrymen.
So, did a cement wall allow one side of men to be more housewife like and the other side to be more manly? I believe it was not only the wall but also the government placed over the people. The easterners were frozen in a time where the men dominated and when that wall came down so did the western woman’s view of what a male should be. Their primal instincts drove them towards those dominating “macho” men of the East, and suddenly the fad is to acquire a man who will provide the maximum amount of protection, even if these men expected to be waited on by their newly conquered women.
Schaffer, Richard, and Neil Smith. "The Gentrification of Harlem?" Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76.3 (1986): 347-65.Department of Geography. Hunter College of the City of University of New York. Web. 25 May 2014. .
Julius Caesar was a very influential figure in Roman history. Many features of the Roman Empire came from his reign as dictator. But what, specifically, were some of those great achievements? In this research paper, I will explain Julius Caesar’s youth, the Roman Republic before Caesar came to power, the Roman government before Caesar became dictator-for-life, the effects of Julius Caesar, the reasons for his assassination, and what affects there were when the public learned about his assassination.
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Both sides can agree that outsourcing can be desirable for a business do to the potential profit. It allows goods to be made cheaper, management to run smoother, and money to be made faster (Salanţă 270). Both sides can also agree, however, that U.S. jobs are lost as a result of outsourcing (Ahmed 192), as well as environmental damage being cause due to corporations taking advantage of loose environmental regulations (Marquis 39). Upon digging deeper into this debate, one can find that both sides present very convincing arguments.
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
The gender binary of Western culture dichotomizes disgendered females and males, categorizing women and men as opposing beings and excluding all other people. Former professor of Gender Studies Walter Lee Williams argues that gender binarism “ignores the great diversity of human existence,” (191) and is “an artifact of our society’s rigid sex-roles” (197). This social structure has proved detrimental to a plethora of people who fall outside the Western gender dichotomy. And while this gender-exclusive system is an unyielding element of present day North American culture, it only came to be upon European arrival to the Americas. As explained by Judith Lorber in her essay “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender”, “gender is so pervasive in our society we assume it is bred into our genes” (356). Lorber goes on to explain that gender, like culture, is a human production that requires constant participation (358).
Bibliography1. "Augustus." Encyclopedia Britannica. 1997 2. Grant, Michael. The World of Rome. New York: Mentor books, 19603. Foster, Genevieve. Augustus Caesar's World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947.
Outsourcing has only very recently become an issue in the United States, and as a result it has become a very popular political issue during campaigns for presidency. Outsourcing is the idea that a company will subcontract to a third party, usually outside of the US, for various parts of its business structure. An example of this and perhaps the largest source of outsourcing is call centers for tech support, where a company will subcontract to a third party and that party will build up the call center and hire the workers for it. Many people have been affected by outsourcing since it started being used widely in the 1980s, and most would argue that outsourcing is not a good business model, that while it not only negatively affects them, it affects the whole economy. While there are some unmistakable positives to outsourcing, I would argue that as a whole, the negatives far outweigh the positives and outsourcing is bad for the United States.
Despite the sound logic of the evolutionary argument, it does not account for what humans have had for a long time: contraception. This is why many people prefer to look at how this double standard formed from more of a sociological viewpoint. Women’s sexual con...
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
Gender, Sex and Community is dedicated to improve our knowing of the variations among groups of women and groups of men - as well as between women and men - in an era of globalization
The dichotomy between nature and culture is a topic which has been present for many years in the field of social science, but only in the more recent decade’s has it become important for anthropology. The 1970’s were a crucial time for this debate as it was the only real time we knew the difference between sex and gender, but now I aim to discuss how this certainty has come to an end, and we are now forced to question our own western ideas of sexuality and the body.
Martin, Emily. "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 248-53. Print.
Osmundson, Joseph. "'I Was Born This Way': Is Sexuality Innate, and Should It Matter?" Harvard Kennedy School. N.p., 2011. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. .
Society has stamped an image into the minds of people of how the role of each gender should be played out. There are two recognized types of gender, a man and a woman, however there are many types of gender roles a man or a woman may assume or be placed into by society. The ideas of how one should act and behave are often times ascribed by their gender by society, but these ascribed statuses and roles are sometimes un-welcomed, and people will assume who they want to be as individuals by going against the stereotypes set forth by society. This paper will examine these roles in terms of how society sees men and women stereotypically, and how men and women view themselves and each other in terms of stereotypes that are typically ascribed, as well as their own opinions with a survey administered to ten individuals. What I hope to prove is that despite stereotypes playing a predominant role within our society, and thus influencing what people believe about each other in terms of their same and opposite genders, people within our society are able to go against these ascribed stereotypes and be who they want and it be okay. Through use of the survey and my own personal history dealing with gender stereotyping I think I can give a clear idea as to how stereotypes envelope our society, and how people and breaking free from those stereotypes to be more individualistic.