Gender roles

Throughout history, gender roles between males and females have remained largely the same. In recent times, this has become a more controversial topic. The main idea of these gender roles was that men went out and handled things like government and business, while women stayed at home, cooked, and took care of the children. And only men were educated and could work to support the family. Though this may be the generic and most common representation of gender roles, different cultures have their own roles as well. Although most cultures did have purposes for men and purposes for women, they are slowly moving toward gender equality and also accepting new genders that have both purposes meant for males and females. A common stereotype now is that females do better in academics and school than males. This is also proven through studies, where females perform better in academics. This is ironic because women did not have access to education in the past since their lifestyle did not require them to educate themselves, nor were they seen fit. They were also not allowed to vote for intellectual reasons. A role that is very gender-specific can be a construction job, which is something that almost only men work in. This role is associated with men, at least in Western culture, and it is not necessarily reserved for women. However, India has women working in construction. In India, mostly with local and small construction projects, poor families, both men and women, work, and it is not the same traditional work that is seen in the Western Hemisphere. This example can debunk the fact that some types of roles are only meant for men and others are only meant for women. In the past, women were at a disadvantage because they were kept out of society and had limited things to do because of their gender. If these socially constructed gender roles weren't created and the two genders were always seen as equal, this topic wouldn't have been a controversial one.