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Sex role stereotypes and how they are shaped
Sex role stereotypes and how they are shaped
Sex role stereotypes and how they are shaped
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Whoever made the statement, “Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars,” clearly knew what he was talking about. Males and females are taught differently from the beginning of their lives, which result in them feeling different about sex and love.
Men are commended for their strong attitude and aggressiveness towards sex. When it comes to the subject of sex, females are taught to be discreet and demure. In our society, a man is considered to be a strong and virile when they are known to have sex with many females or boast about their sexual conquests. On the other hand, women who have many sexual encounters are considered whores, shanks, skeezers, or trash.
When it comes to the subject of love, lots of women equate sex and love together. In most cases, women will not have as many casual affairs in comparison to most men. Women want to feel comfortable and desired not only physically but mentally as well before having sex. Women know that if they have as many sexual affairs as a man does, their characters are destroyed as far as being respected. Most women do not feel as though sex is casual as most men do. Women feel as though they must be in love in order to have sex. Some females believe that they should be married before having sex because of their religion. A lot of women are waiting to hear those three little words, “I love you,” before they have sex. Then, there are the men who run when they hear the same three little words. Still, there are exceptions. There are many women who use sex to get what they want. The more money, gifts, and tokens, the more sex they will have with a man. This is because there are men who will say and do anything to get sex. They will dine, dance, buy flowers, and say those three little words to have sex with the one that they desire.
Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the rave was free love. In other words, expressing love with no ties or promise of long term relationships. The Beatles expressed it in their hit, “All You Need Is Love”. I believe that they were equating love and sex which was the atmosphere then. Women and men were very casual in their sexual encounters. One-nightstands were not looked upon negatively.
When a woman may celebrate her sexuality and be open with it, she will be called a slut, but if a man sleeps around he can still be a hero - President John F. Kennedy and Wilt Chamberlain, a few
Over time, the image of men has changed. This is due mostly to the relaxation of rigid stereotypical roles of the two genders. In different pieces of literature, however, men have been presented as the traditional dominate figure, the provider and rule maker or non-traditional figure that is almost useless and unimportant unless needed for sexual intercourse. This dramatic difference can either perpetuate the already existing stereotype or challenge it. Regardless of the differences, both seem to put men into a negative connotation.
Girls are expected to be sexual by pleasing the men around them; while at the same time not being sexual in order to please the men as well as the people around them.
It has been said that “Society has always defined for us what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, what a man should be like and what a woman should be like, and these traditional definitions of gender roles have limited and even harmed individuals”. The theme of sexual politics comes to mind for this quote. One can define sexual politics as the relationship of the sexes, male and female regarding power. Society’s definition of this can limit an individual in their gender role and restrain a person to not be themselves.
...odity, desperately sought after by men. Their commodity places them in a double bind: "To be sexually active is to be suspect, to be a virgin is to be desirable and therefore potentially sexually active and potentially suspect. Either way women lose. Either way they are sexualised" (Macfarlane 78).
Historically throughout the earliest centuries, the term gender and sex has been a vital focus in distinguishing the overlap between gender differences. Matlin’s book, Psychology of women, explains that gender similarities of females are at most similar to men, however, considering that culture influences individual’s beliefs; women are expected to behave the way culture entitles us to (Matlin, 2008, p.8). In contrast, the book also reveals that women and men are different from one another in terms of social and intellectual skills according to biological inheritance (Matlin, 2008, p.9). These two perspectives expose valid reasons in terms of the roles that men and women play in society. Even though feminists and female psychologists imply that both men and women are exactly the same, there is however, a strong statistical correlation related to the comparison of men and women according to different brain wiring, strength and endurance (York, n.d., para.10).
Before we go any further, I think I should first dispel some rumors and ease your mind of the negative thoughts that must be sweeping through it. What do you think of when you hear the word rave? Drugs? Hoodlum kids running amuck? Loud music that interferes with the whole community’s sleeping habits? Violence? The dictionary defines the word “rave” as a numerous amount of things, such as “an act or instance” or the verb “to talk with extreme enthusiasm,” but this is one case where Webster has got it all wrong. What is the true definition of a rave? In most cases, a rave is simply a dance party where guests experience a sense of camaraderie and elevated consciousness through the presence of music. This means there is an abundance of dance expression, interaction with other such ravers, and a positive mood change. And while there are sometimes drugs involved, there is absolutely no deliberate disturbance of the peace and zero tolerance for violence. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s divulge into the history of this invigorating phenomenon.
12). What is ok for one to do is not acceptable for another to do although they are equal. This standard is upheld by media on almost every outlet. This can range from women showing off their sexuality to the men being praised for sleeping around or having lots of women around him in one setting. An outside source goes on to state “Under the rubric of the sexual double standard, highly sexually active men are praised or rewarded with high status, whereas highly sexually active women are derogated or suffer a damaged reputation” (Marks, 2008, Pg. 84). In the society we live in a man can have a many sexual partners as he pleases and studies actually show that men do report having more sexual partners than women (Chapter 12). Not only is it glorified and encouraged but there are some countries that practice polygyny which is when a man has more than one wife making it acceptable in various cultures. There are instances where a woman has multiple husbands as well and this is referred to polyandry. A woman’s sexuality is always glorified and placed on a peddle stool in some cases. Men love to admire the female body like to cat call when they see something they like. However, if and when a woman acts in the sexual manner that men glorify them to be in, then the woman is looked at
When women’s desires are less worthy of concern or not worthy of concern at all, it becomes evident that the hookup culture promotes women being used as a tool or a means to an end for male satisfaction. According to the Kantian moral theory, the culture is immoral because the woman is no longer being respected. The ambiguity of the hookup culture couple with societal effects of inegalitarian porn, according to Eaton’s “A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminist” and power imbalances in the sexes creates a culture that fosters rape. Women are placed in predicaments where they have to give in to pushy, coercive behavior by men who want to go further than the women intends to. Even if a woman feels liberated by participating in the hookup culture, that doesn’t mean she wants to go all the way, with every partner, every time. The objectification of women and rape are two serious and harmful effects of the hookup culture.
The male is supposed to be the main bread winner of the family unit, making money and protecting the woman while she tends to the children and the house. In the modern day this mold has been challenged to a certain extent with more woman moving into careers beyond the home. However, in Freud’s time these set matrimonial roles were still in place, especially the ones limiting women from having any form of sexual relations prior to her wedding. As he puts it, a high value is placed on a women’s “preservation of sexual chastity”. Practices such as ‘slut-shaming’ represent a continuation of this tendency to stigmatize the sexual promiscuity of women. Freud argues that this lack of sexual experience and knowledge of a woman will lead to problems for both parties in a marriage. If a woman is suffering in an unhealthy marriage he posits that a woman will develop mental problems as “nothing protects her virtue so securely as
One of the main and most discussed double standards when it comes to gender is the fact that men are praised for being promiscuous, while women are put down and called names. This double standard goes way back in the societal memory. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that these gender differences have resulted from males’ and females’ different reproductive capacities. A woman can go have sex with a man, but she then will be limited to carrying his baby for those nine months. In the meantime, the man can go out and have sex with many women, and have all of those women pregnant at the same time, thus resulting in multiple offspring. “Because men have greater reproductive capacities, it is considered beneficial for them to inseminate as many females as possible to maximize the survival of their offspring (Milhausen and Herold).” Still, the theory does not fully explain why women, even though they do not have the ability to spread their genes as quickly as men can, are expected to be sexually conservative. Perhaps the simplest explanation from an evolutionary standpoint is those women are sexually conservative because they are the ones that have to have the babies. Pregnancy is hard work, not to mention that if a woman sleeps around, she is bound to be unsure of whose baby she is carrying.
Whore and Slut, two words that seemed to have forced their way out of the mouths of hundreds of girls in the last decade. Often enough, these words are used to berate and tear down other girls for acting a certain way, dressing in a way that is considered “provocative”, or having more than one sexual partner: an act called Slut-Shaming. According to the author Jessica Valenti, “I was called a slut when I didn 't have a boyfriend and kissed a random boy at a party. . .I was called a slut when I wore a bikini on a weekend trip with high school friends. It seems the word slut can be applied to any activity that doesn 't include knitting, praying, or sitting perfectly still lest any sudden movements be deemed whorish” (Valenti 1). Women who have
The behaviors of the Pokot wives and husbands illustrated in the article “Human sexuality in cross-culture Perspective” show the norms of sexuality behaviors that are different from the U.S norms. The Pokot wives believe that their behaviors are right things to be done or are the appropriate sanctions given to a husband who is not able to sexually satisfy his wife. However, the US perceives these behaviors differently. In the US perspective, it is considered to be a deviance that is against the law within the society. It is considers to be domestic abuse which might lead some individuals involved in this behaviors to be given a negative sanctions like sending them to prison.
Men and women are very different, especially when it comes to sexuality. They have different feelings and emotions. Gender role expectations influence a huge impact on our sexuality. Gender roles refer to how a person behaves as male or female, we close to masculine or femine, which are chararestics that yourself or other notice. Boys and girls have always been treated differently. Males are treated more as the tough one, with no emotions, and females as the one’s whoe were emotional and needed to more attention.
There is constantly cessation why women and men cohabitate, nurture, desire, and endure. Many shrug the similarities and differences to the side due to the complex nature that is involved in understanding the progression. Since the beginning of time, according to the bible, man was placed as the dominant sex, fending for the families well being. The woman has tended to the important jobs around the homestead as situations arose. Often in society, one will find himself in a battle depending on the views of the receiving recipients. Following is a dialogue explaining a safe and metro sexual view as a general whole.