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A Feminist’s Point of View on Gender Rolls and Social Norms

I believe that social norms affect young girls gender identification because being a girl sucks! Think about it. Girls are and always have been seen as submissive to the male gender. Girls are supposed to sit and play with dolls and as they grow up they are supposed to learn how to cook, clean and be caretakers. I personally do not feel comfortable with this social norm at all. 

I know what you're thinking, “this social norm has changed since the 1900’s”, but does that really make the social norm go away? The answer is no! For example,  a woman named Patricia Alder did a study on elementary school students. The study included asking boys and girls what they thought popularity was. For the boys she found that it was a ‘cult of masculinity’ but for the girls she found that popularity was more of a ‘culture of compliance and comfortability’. This means that for the boys popularity is being included in sports and getting their hands dirty but for girls popularity is being included in playing ‘house’ or playing with dolls. If a girl goes and plays sports with the boys everyone looks at them weird. For example, if a girl plays with boys all the time they will eventually be called degrading words. They would call the girl these terms because girls are supposed to be learning how to be a good caretaker and girls mainly learn this by hanging out with other girls.

Another example about how this social norm has not gone away is, through my life experiences. In my life, I have found many examples where guys are too dumb to know that learning how to take care of  your self is a good thing, some boys don’t know how to make their own food, clean or do their laundry. For example, my mom does everything my sixteen year old brother, cooks him food, cleans his clothes and it has gotten to the point where he needs to be reminded to shower. My brother can not take care of himself. If he ever gets a girlfriend he will drive her crazy! She will learn quickly that she has to do his laundry, cook, and clean for him because he will not do anything. My brother was always taught to play sports, video games and hang out with his friends. But on the other hand when it came to raising me my parents taught me how to cook, clean and do my laundry. Today I am happy because I know how to live but my brother does not and he will need to rely on a girl to take care of him. Which for her case I hope that she notices that he’s a bum and leaves but my point is that boys and girls need to learn how to take care of themselves to help end this social norm.

My final point is that young girls need to see more women in powerful rolls.  For example, four years ago, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ran against each other for the spot of presidency. In the end Trump won but I think it’s only because he is a male. Sure, it was good for young girls to see a woman running for president but it would have been even better if young girls saw a woman being president. Maybe if she was elected things would be different today, but we will never know.

I believe that  this social norm still exists and it needs to disappear as soon as possible to help our younger generations because it is not fair to women to, not be able to play with boys without stigma, always be the ones taking care of the house and finally watching women rise and fail. We can get rid of the social norm, by educating girls about how masculine the world is and that as a girl they can do anything they set their mind to.