Three Classical Theories Of Gender Roles

Section 1: What is your topic, and why is it important to study this topic? For my topic I have chosen gender roles. I believe this topic is important to study because, it is often stated or shown in all forms of media that a woman should be the one cooking and cleaning, while a man should be the one working and fixing anything that may be broken. This is something I have heard all my life especially since my culture is patriarchal so my father was always the one working full time, while my mother stayed home cleaning and cooking day by day.

Section 2: Apply each of the three major Classical theories to your topic.

A. I will begin by addressing a functionalist’s perspective.

a. I believe a functionalist would say that gender roles exist

I also believe a functionalist would compare gender roles to an idea such as the division of labor, and how a woman staying home cleaning while a man goes out and works are complementary roles and that those roles contribute to the society as a whole.

c. The foundations of Functionalism are built on food, shelter, clothing, and money. Which as stated before functionalists believe gender roles serve to maintain social order because they stabilize these four foundations.

d. A few manifest functions of gender roles are to keep fine lines within jobs and duties, which brings up the idea of the glass escalator, glass ceiling and pink collar ghettos. A few latent functions are extreme inequalities which include sexism and stereotypes. I once saw in a television show, a man said to his daughter “you have to work five times as hard as a man to earn half of the credit”.

B. Secondly I will analyze this from a Conflict Perspective

a. Conflict theorists would argue that gender is just an attempt by men to maintain power and privilege. So based on this idea men are considered the primary or dominant group, which makes women the secondary or subordinate group. Of course it’s natural for people in power to try to maintain their power and