Gender Roles in Society

Abstract

Growing up, gender roles were set on me as I played with Barbie dolls and dress up, while my brothers played with fire trucks and wrestlers. The types of movies we watched were different and the types of books we watched were different. When my brother tried to play with dolls or play with me, my uncles would tell him to man up or go play with a truck. It would be thought as bizarre for a male to cry during titanic, or to read Cinderella. Going through my years of high school, I noticed that guys who played sports got more attention than the ones who did not. Males are expected to be athletic and good in many sports. Playing a musical instrument or acting was thought as feminine and that idea made it difficult for many males to be involved in those activities.

"Could you hand me some scissors?" This is what a young teen asks on the television show, Grey's Anatomy, when her doctor tells her that she is a hermaphrodite; a person born with both male and female parts. Having tried suicide before and not feeling as though she fits in, is how many intersexed individuals feel when they are assigned gender roles that they do not feel suits them. This brave patient proceeds to cut off her hair and assume a male identity, going from a she to a he.

Sexual identity is a complex system of ideas created from societal view and an individual's disposition towards them. The physical make-up of the person directly correlates to how they are perceived and what roles are placed upon the person. In Jessica R. Stearns article, A Transsexual's Story, she states that before the term Transsexual became known, it was considered a mental disease that society thought was curable by psychiatric treatment. One of the theories was that as a person became older the urge to change their sex would too. Reading 27 talks about parts that are not discussed in today's society. As stated in