Margaret Mead's Expectation On Gender Roles

Society’s Expectation on Gender Roles A man coming back from work, expecting dinner to be served when he reached home and it’s taken as the wife’s responsibility to fulfill her husband’s expectation. This scenario is the common stereotype of the roles of husband and wife but in today’s society, it is slowly changing. The definition of gender role is the overt expression of attitudes that indicate to others the degree of your maleness or femaleness. Society has assigned gender roles that the two sexes are expected to fulfill. The picture at the top shows an exaggerated photo of the expectation on gender roles in today’s society. Let’s take a look at the man, it shows that he is big, strong, and tough. His posture shows that he is confident
According to US Census Bureau, the most male employed jobs in 2006 were Pipe layers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters with 98.9% male while the most female employed jobs were Secretaries and Administrative Assistants with 97.7% female. With these statistics, it is shown that there were jobs that would employ individual base on gender because those jobs are expected to done better if he or she was a man or woman. In Margaret Mead’s “Sex and Temperament” in (1935), she writes that in some societies, “defined roles are mainly expressed in dress or occupation”(860) which implies that certain jobs are expected either more male employees or female employees in some
For example, women are expected to stay home and take care of the children and cook for the family but there are many modern families that both husband and wife work and would let the day care center take care of their children and there are even those families with the wife working whilst the husband stays home and cook and take care of the children. Women these days are able to dress like a man and it is consider normal but in the past each gender have their own assigned attire and if one were to cross-dressed it would be inappropriate. According to Mead, “each tribe has certain definite attitudes towards temperament, a theory of what human beings, either men or women or both, are naturally like, a norm in terms of which to judge and condemn those individuals who deviate from it.” (861). She implies that in society, men and women are raised according to present needs in society therefore she would agree to the change because it benefits