Gender Roles in Society

Gender Roles in Society

Since the beginning of time, there have been gender roles in society. From the very first hunters and gatherers until now, men and women are expected to look a certain way, act a certain way and perform certain tasks. Like back when the very first Homo sapiens walked the earth, women were in charge of gathering berries and vegetation for the village and the men were in charge of the hunt. No man wanted a chatterbox woman on the hunt because she would scare away the hunt and no woman wanted the obnoxious boy in the peaceful berry fields.

Today, the impact of gender roles in society is great. If a girl wants to play football, she can’t. If a boy wants to be a cheerleader, he can’t. When you take the train or take a walk around downtown, you will notice the differences in the woman’s outfits and you will notice the similarities in the boy’s. Anything that a girl wears will make an impression on somebody else. They will either think “ wow look at her, she is really cute today” or “she really shouldn’t be wearing that” .

If a man wears makeup, everybody laughs at him and shuns him, but if a woman doesn’t wear makeup it gives the impression that they don’t care how they look. It’s the same thing when a man and a woman marry each other. The woman takes the man’s last name. Have you ever heard of a man taking the woman’s last name? Everywhere you look you see a major gender role that is placed on the shoulders of a man or a women.