PSY217

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GENDER ROLE

Professor Winaski

Susie Wills

PSY 217

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The chosen topic of study is about gender roles. The group that I do not belong to is that

of women. Two theories on this topic that I will explore are evolutionary perspective theory and

social learning perspective. From this topic, one of the research questions is what roles does

gender has on parenting? From these it would be more interesting to analyze how the roles of

each parent affect the raising of a child. This can involve issues like morals that can be taught as

the result of the “gender” parent. Another research question from this selected topic is why does

feminism in the society have a dismissive implication? The research question can cover issues

like reasons as to why is bad to be “gendered” as a girl. From gender roles another research

question is what role does religion play regarding the gender? With this the role gender plays in

who is permitted to act what within the religious practices and jobs within the specific culture.

Another research question interesting from this topic is how do you think living in a household

where aloft of gender roles are true have an impact on self-esteem to teenagers? (Eisend,

M.2019). This can portray how equality to a child provides freedom to choose who they are and

display how support has an impact on gender roles.

The assumptions on gender roles are always based on stereotypes concept on how women and

men should behave, what is right for another gender and what the other gender is able to do or

best at. Many men and women encounter daily interconnection in which gender responsibilities

and gender conduct are manifested. Frequently other people appreciate that a person is drifting

and attempt to act in a way that it makes it open that you are drifting far away from what is

considered to be masculine or feminine. Another assumption is that when a woman is having an

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out dinner with a man, the man has a responsibility for taking care of all the bills. The origin of

these assumptions was from an occasion where men came up to provide advice on how to mow a

lawn properly. The men gave a suggestion of wearing other suitable shoes and the second one

suggested wearing of googles to prevent the eyes from rocks that could be propelled by the

blade. Despite there were no rocks in front of the yard and the tennis shoes being in good

condition to wear, men needed to give opinions because the gender was a female performer. The

advice made the female gender feel infantilized (Cascella, C.2020)

Evolutionary prospectively, it is believed that the sex difference ultimately produces inheritable

traits rather than non-genetic processes. This is observed in genetic behavior, where almost all

human beings' structural and behavioral features show the impact of genetics. It is, however,

noted that there is a sexual selection difference that is as a result of sex-differentiated

reproductive rate and costs in both male and female, i.e., in the sapiosexuality heritability study

have found that it is higher in the female compared to the male thus making us conclude the

genetic factors more influence than female due to the greater sexual restrictedness. There has

been a tremendous controversy that digenetic effects are habitually baffled with inherited holism,

which has always led to confusion in the evolutionary psychology and evolutionary account of

gender. Evolutionary psychologists have denied genetic essentialism by acknowledging the non-

genetic, environmental inputs and phenotypic plasticity in the lives of humans. The sex

difference in mating could result from strategies adapted by every gender to the different

environmental challenges. Recently, evolutionary accounts on the sex difference and variation

have considered sex ratio operation, the pressure of pathogens, availability of resources, and the

cultural context. Another crisis has holder our minds back that our inheritance cannot hold on to

information and encode the mind making it assume different models. It is observed that human

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beings share a significant percentage of epigenome regarding other species and relate to genome

sequences and that the rest of the genes must contain instructions. Therefore, the mind is

composed of cognitive modules that are special to carry out a specific task. Social learning

theory holds on to four significant concepts: motivating, attention, reproduction, and retention.

Through observation, children are more likely to be educated on behavior they see from adults.

According to the social learning theory regarding gender identity and roles as a set of behaviors

usually learned from the environment. Gender behaviors are mainly learned from the

observational learning process. Children will always observe how people around them behave in

different ways, which connect to gender. One observed is a model; many influential models like

the parents’ surround children. The models will play a significant role in providing examples of

masculine and feminine behaviors that the child needs to observe and copy. A child will always

pay attention to the model's behavior, and in the later time, they will try to immolate the behavior

they had seen.

Evolutionary perspectives attempt to explain the differences between females and

males in terms of biological adaptations. This perspective claim that males are more

aggressive than females because they can gain greater access to females through violent

competition with other males. The idea on males is that they are thought to be more

engaging and willing in casual sex because they have opportunities to greatly increase

their reproduction. Females tend to be beneficiaries due to their choosy behavior because

of demands o pregnancy and breastfeeding. Social learning perspectives emphasizes on

the benefits of modelling, observing and the imitating behaviors together with emotional

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reactions towards others. This theory examines how characteristic of a person effects

learning in an environment and how these factors interact. Social learning perspective has

a mediation stage that involves attention which is the degree that a behavior is noticed.

Behavior intends to grab the attention before it is imitated while in evolutionary

perspective base more on comparison of male and female behavior whereby females

prefer a partner who is taller and is of high level (D’acunto.F.2020). Evolutionary

perspective on gender role has a background set on genetic differences between men and

women while social learning perspective regards the identity gender and role as a set of

characters learned from the environment. From evolutionary perspective and social

learning perspective in both children are surrounded with role models that include parents

with these models providing examples of feminine and masculine behavior that is

observed and imitated. In both perspectives the behavior plays a greater role among men

and women affecting how they interact. One of the weakness from evolutionary

perspective is rising disputes on testability of the evolutionary theory. Another weakness

from this theory is alternatives to cognitive assumptions like mass modularity. The

strength of evolutionary perspective is that it makes the society live better because of its

support s men become more beneficiaries from justification of traditional gender roles.

Another strength from evolutionary perspective is that it shares some common insights

that regard gender relation. Regarding the social learning perspective on of its strength is

that it is flexible in explaining differences in a person learning or behavior. Another

strength of this theory is that people learn through observation through learners merely

copying role models (Kowalski B.M 2020). Social learning perspective has a weakness

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on inner conflicts resulting from new behaviours.it also entails less authenticity whereby

in most cases it would take a long time for one to adopt to imitation of a new behavior.

From my research I got challenged with the information that made me to reexamine

assumptions surrounding gender roles. The major assumptions about gender roles that was

misleading was that roles are observed differences between genders are portrayed in biological

sex variations and that variations between sexes are more significant than similarities. I argue

that this is not the case and we need to have a better understanding to our evolutionary history in

order to get better of gender inequality. Insight gained is that gender roles help in shaping

individual behavior not only by showing how people of each gender need to behave but also by

providing rise in penalties to people who do not hold to norms. I personally belief that gender

roles can never be eliminated because of biologic variances between men and women and

traditional gender behaviors simply exists in our nature. My thinking on the topic children

development has eventually shifted. Shift in thinking might impact my perception on children in

future. I will have a mind that beliefs children typically develop in different stages at around the

age of two. Children will be aware of their physical differences between girls and boys. Before

celebrating their third birthdays most of the children will easily label themselves as a boy or a

girl. I will bear in mind that gender development is a necessary normal process for all the

children. Some children will tend to possess some characters that have similarities to all areas of

behavior and human health. This will make me be aware that all children as they grow will

require support, care from family, love, education, and the society that provides makes the

background of a child happy and healthy (Schneider M.C.2019). Gender roles that will be

encountered in childhood will be expected to play a greater role in influencing relationships

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personally later on in life. I will expect children to understand gender roles and impact how they

socialize with friends and form relationships.

Despite existing reasons of people still believing relevancy of gender roles are present,

there is a lot of proof that controvert them. In regarding religion there are different religious

groups globally as well as believers who do not belief in any religion at all. Religion itself is

regarded as a belief and taken as a way of living by an individual. Because of various facts,

religion cannot determine gender basis roles because it is also a form of social establishment that

is certain to an individual. For those who have a belief that gender roles are inherent and

transpire naturally, it is commented that gender roles develop when a person grows up. Children

acquire values, behaviors and motives in different ways appropriately for male and female within

a culture. Children evolve gender-based beliefs which with time are reflected in gender roles

latter. Tan early age children acquire gender identify enabling them to develop gender roles and

gender differences. From this manner people will not have a pressure of conforming the societal

levels providing an opportunity to freedom of expression and prevent them from that something

is not well with them.

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REFERENCES

Eisend, M. (2019). Gender roles. Journal of Advertising, 48(1), 72-80.

Cascella, C., & Pampaka, M. (2020). Attitudes towards gender roles in family: A Rasch-based

validation study. Journal of applied measurement.

D’Acunto, F., Malmendier, U., & Weber, M. (2020). Gender roles and the gender expectations

gap (No. w26837). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kowalski, B. M., & Scheitle, C. P. (2020). Sexual identity and attitudes about gender

roles. Sexuality & Culture, 24(3), 671-691.

Schneider, M. C., & Bos, A. L. (2019). The application of social role theory to the study of

gender in politics. Political Psychology, 40, 173-213.