Gender Roles Sociology

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Pages: 4

Throughout history, humans have been split into two subgroups; male and female. This classification, although rooted in biology and reproduction of early cave man days, has evolved and created a chain of effects in its wake. Gender roles changed from a survival and a necessity in preserving a species into a cultural formality, creating specific jobs and expectations for both genders in almost every aspect of life. Many cultures adapt similar expectations. Leading one to believe that root causes of gender roles exist and from these roots, variations have branched off, creating a diverse set of gender roles around the world. To explore these shared cultural experiences, one must look within history and use sociological theorems. Uncovering the …show more content…
Religion and faith have a strong bond with the people who exist in it’s community, even to those who don’t follow it. In most religious texts, marriage, sex and child raising are often mentioned multiple times, explaining how one should approach all of these subjects. In Judeo- Christian religions, although very interpretable, most texts include the father, as head of the household, responsible for the wellbeing and discipline of his family and the mother, or female indibidual, to be a more submissive caretaker, serving or nurturing, with often strict roles on etiquette. To be more specific, a research article written by the iNternational journal of gynecology and obstetrics, explored deeply the impact of religion on gender roles. The findings were that many modern roles for men and women were rooted in religious faith and expectations. Many, surprisingly, like how a woman should dress and speak, were not explicitly written in religious texts but were still held in the community. (Zaidi) These implied gender roles were a variation created by a community slowly over its evolution. Not all roles in the religious community are negative or limiting though. Many believe that their faith should evoke a strong human respect, disapproving of domestic abuse, substance abuse and hateful discrimination of the sexes. Because religion is so varying …show more content…
What makes a person carry out societal expectations decided before they were even born? Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis theorized that men, when looking for a suitable life partner, subconsciously look for traits they saw in their mother, and women do the same but towards their fathers. This theory is under scrutiny, like most psychoanalysis, because of it’s lack of hard data. However, many adopt this theory as truth due to its presence in most people’s lives. This can affect gender roles because of one’s tendency to create a family that mirrored their own growing up. This creates a pattern in which the roles of the past household are carried on again. This cycle makes gender roles from the past live on into the future. Humans inadvertently create traditions through the choices we make and gender roles are no exception to