Thursday, September 29, 2011

Gender Equality and Inequality

Since a lot of people already did Teen Pregnancy, I'll be a hipster and do Gender Equality and Inequality. Hmph!

As the name implies, this topic is about The differences of equality between males and females. So, of course we're going to have to talk a little bit about feminism! The general opinion about women, until recently, was that they belonged at home, taking care of the children and keeping the household until the father returned form work. (As illustrated in this clip. Is it wrong that I found that funny?)

Anyways, the Feminists saw how women were being treated in society and came to the conclusion that women were systematically labelled as inferior to men and called for equality amongst males and females alike. My sociologist for that project we competed a while ago, Margaret Mead, conducted research that supports the feminisit theory. She studied societies that were considers "primitive" and discovered that gender roles differed greatly among them. I don't remember the exact names of the tribes, but I do recall that in one of them the women were more dominant, and in another the roles of males and females were equal. Her research demonstrates how gender roles are based on cultural influences rather than being a biological issue.

Is all this true? Well,I think so. In my opinion, gender roles are entirely based on the beliefs and opinions of society. If a whole generation was raised to believe that women belong in the kitchen, then they'll enforce those ideals when they get older and teach their children to think the same as well. Basically, it all depends on the need that society needs to fill. During WWI when then men were away at war, it bacem the women's responsibilty to put the food on the table.They deviated from their traditional roles android that women were just as capable as men. So, basically the inequality between genders isn't justified entirely by gender, but by the values of society.