My social issue is gender roles in our society. What gender roles are, how they affect individual people, how they affect society as a whole, and how gender roles affect gender competition. A gender role is a range of behaviours and attitudes that are deemed appropriate, desired, normal, or acceptable for someone in their gender in our society. People feel the need to be accepted so they wish to conform to these “norms” that society has placed on genders. If you do not fit in with your gender role then you are not desirable in society. Most people if not everyone are gender typed when they are born. Being gender typed is the when a child becomes aware of their gender and starts to behave in their gender norms. People are gender typed at birth so they are not even aware what genders are or their feelings towards them before they are pushed into their believed gender. There are many negative effects of gender roles. For example, people are told their gender and then told how to act and think based on their assigned gender. Men are suppose to be the bread winners and go out and work everyday while women are meant to be stay at home moms who cook and clean. Gender stereotypes like this that come form gender roles can cause many problems for people. If you do not desire to conform to your role then society sees you as unfit or abnormal. Gender roles set boundaries for people and can lead to internal conflict and unhappiness with the situation a person is in. It is said that gender roles are linked with the belief that personal traits are tied together with biological gender. By saying this it causes an expectation for people and forces them to change who they are and shames them if they do not change.
There are also many effects that gender roles lead to in gender competition. Competition between different and the same sexes. It is because of society and gender roles that competition between genders is the way it is. Women tend to shy away from competition especially when it is against men. Whereas men embarrass competition in most situations. Men are eager to engage in competition simply because from such a young age they are known to compete. Young boys are competitive by nature, always trying to prove themselves and be the best. Young girls can be like that too, but once they grow up competing against boys seems to be more of a turn off than something to be desired.
Dominant Themes
While examining this topic I found that there is a big difference in competition between genders. I will discuss how women tend to shy away from competition, how men embrace competition, and how this all effects our society. I have looked at three main articles that I will bring up while talking about the themes I have found. These themes are ones that while looking at the topic of gender roles and competition I have found to be most blunt and important. I chose these three because they are the ones that I found to be most outstanding and relevant. They are most relevant because when looking at gender competition it is clear to see that women do not compete nearly as much or fondly as men do. Men are known to be competitive but also when competing against women it is generally not much of a competition because women would rather not compete at all.
Gender roles can be cultural or personal. They are meant to determine the norms for people with their given gender. They tell us how we should think, act, dress, speak, and essentially behave in our sex category. These gender schemas basically define masculinity and femininity. While looking at the question of how gender roles affect gender competition one of them themes I found was how women tend to shy away from competition. Many laboratory studied have discovered that women often respond less favourably to competition. Since women are less likely to want to compete when they do their results are not always victory. Fewer women enter and win competitions because of the lack of desire for it. I looked at a few studies about women and competition and found a very interesting one. In this journal article by Muriel Niederle and Lisa Vesterlund called “Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?” it discusses men and women and how they differ in their selection into competitive environments. Men and women were asked to complete a simple task in a noncompetitive environment and then again in a competitive tournament incentive scheme. There was no gender differences in performance, however, it showed that men tend to select the competitive tournament twice as much as women when choosing their compensation scheme for the next performance. It was 73 perfect to 35 percent with men having the higher percent wish for the tournament than women. It is said that the entry gap is driven mainly by men being more overly confident and women being less welcoming to the idea of competing. The end results showed that women shy away from competition and men embrace it. You can see this in many situations in our society. In our society women are expected to behave a certain way. They are expected to be delicate, gentle, and sweet. Men are also expected to act a certain way. They are meant to be winners, protectors, and successful. Women are meant to be (by society’s standards) less successful than men. Men are top dogs and are easily threatened by independent, assertive women. Because of the way our society is run, women may feel less inclined to compete against men because it will intimidate men and could make women feel less womanly or delicate. Also men, if beat by a woman, will fell less manly because women are considered weak. If a man is beat by a woman then he is seen as weaker than a woman. Women shy away from competitions form men because of their egos in a way. Women generally want to be desired by men and if they are seen as stronger or better than a man then they will not be desired. Men have very big egos so if their ego is tampered with it can hurt their pride. I think that is a big reason why men are so competitive and women are not as competitive. Men do not want their pride to be hurt and women do not want to be the ones to hurt it. After looking at why women shy away from competition I looked in the other direction. Next I will discuss men and competition.
Men tend to enjoy friendly competition. Often you will see or hear of men dealing with their issues through means of competition. Men and women differ in many ways. Women enjoy talking about their feelings whereas men are more physical with their emotions and because of this men tend to work out their problems through physical activity. It is clear to see that sports are the main activity for boys. By playing sports they can let out their frustrations in a healthy way. However, in doing do they are also developing a very competitive nature. Having hands on experience playing sports I can say that the competitive side does come out even in the shy, non-driven people. The feeling of losing is not something that is wished upon and since boys compete so much they wish to win so they are driven even more to be competitive. In an article I read about competition between men and women called, “Are Men More Competitive Than Women?” by King’s College Research Centre, it stated that both men and women can be competitive just in different ways. In the study they asked university students to keep diaries for their first semester. In the diaries students were asked to document their competitive interactions. The results showed that men had more same sex competition and competed more in things like sports whereas women competed more with looking attractive. It also showed that men used physical, not verbal, aggression more often than women. Young men were more physically and verbally aggressive than older men and showed to be more competitive than older men.
Gender roles have a major effect on our society and especially women. Not only do gender roles affect people well being but they can also affect their personal and professional life. It is not hard to see that there is a difference in the hierarchies in workplaces. Men have more opportunities and places than women. In an article by Jacuelynne S. Eccles called “Gender Roles and Women’s Achievement-Related Decisions,” she discusses how there is still a displacement and differentiation of genders in education and employment. Even though there has been an outstanding decrease in discrimination in the last forty years there is obviously still some present. Women are still in the lower levels of the professional hierarchy. In some fields women are still unrepresented, for example, engineering and physical science programs. There are negative effects to this. For starters, the fields that are male dominant may be intimidating for women. Women are not expected to be good at math or engineering and may not be as accepted in the field of their interest. It is because of our gender roles that women are not suppose to be interested in certain things and same for men. Men are meant to be masculine and powerful and are not suppose to enjoy “girly” things. Just like women have fields that they should not be interested in so do men. Male ballet dancers, for example, have a hard time in our society. Dance is something that is meant for girls not boys and if boys participate in it then they are not fitting into their gender norms. Then there is the factor if the effects that gender competition has on people.
Gender roles can have a major effect on your well being. If you do not feel like you fit in with what your gender is suppose to do and be then you can feel like an outsider and lost. This can lead to feelings of distress, sadness, and confusion. Other people can judge you, quit easily, if they feel that you do not fit with your gender scheme. Once enough people feel you do not fit then society deems you as different and not connected with the proper way you should be. The effects on our society are reoccurring topics. Gender roles are seen in many cases to have negative effects on people. With these negative factors it leads people to not enjoy competition with other genders. There is a sense of uncomfortableness that goes with competing against other genders. Because of the norms society has placed on genders people do not want to be considered different so competing may seem like something that is not acceptable in communities because of the outcome it might result in.
Conclusion
After looking at articles, websites, and drawing from life experiences and observations I now have a much better understanding of the topic. Genders roles effect our society in many way and it effects gender competition in many ways too. However, the ways that I have found are mainly negative. The negative affects of gender competition are damaging to both the male and female egos and personalities. It is this way because of our society. Men should not feel upset by competing and losing to women and women should not feel discouraged by competing and beating men. Our society has made these social norms for genders that makes people scared to differ from it because of the fear of being undesirable by societies standards.
To answer the question of how gender roles affect gender competition it is simple. It has a major affect. A negative affect mainly. There are a few uplifting points, for example, some friendly competition between friends, siblings, or other family members. Some friendly competition between genders can be good but on the grand spectrum gender competition is not something that happens very often on a professional level. Many females do not wish to participate in competition in general and especially not against males. Due to this women may feel less womanly if they do wish to compete. Competition is something that should not be frowned upon it is something that should be embraced in ways. Women should feel no shame in competing and winning and men should feel no shame in competing and losing. Our society needs to better understand people as individuals and not just genders and their acceptable norms. Once we can recognize the differences that people have from the normal behaviours of their sex can we move forward to better gender equality. There can be much more research done on this topic. People being looked at individually and as a whole could create a better picture for later understanding of the effects of gender roles and gender competition.