Gender roles in Britain - Welsh Government



Gender roles in Britain

The important questions for a sociologist interested in the topic of gender are:

a. What type of personality is a man supposed to have in our culture? Think of five words to describe a man.

b. What type of personality is a woman supposed to have in our culture? Think of five words to describe a woman.

c. Are men and women treated equally or are they treated in a different way from each other because of their gender? Write down some ideas here.

Men and women can expect very different roles in life. Women tend to be in lower paid jobs, even when they are in professions. More men than women are promoted at work and women tend to be the ones who are expected to do the housework and look after children.

It would seem therefore that in Britain, men and women are socialised differently and have different sorts of behaviour expected of them

How are gender roles learned?

A famous sociologist, Ann Oakley said that gender is learned through a number of processes. Some of these are:

Expectations: Parents expect different kinds of behaviour from girls than boys.

Imitation: Children will copy their parents and aim to be like them. The parent is a role model. If Dad helps in the house, so will boys. If Dad does nothing, boys will never learn that it is acceptable for men and women to work together at chores

Identification: Children play at being people that they see on television. They are putting themselves in the place of their hero.

Group pressure: Boys and girls tend to play with people of their own gender. If a boy plays with female toys, then other children may tease him. Generally it is worse for a boy to play with female toys and like female things than it is for a girl to play boy games.

Think of your own examples of each of the processes of socialisation named.

How are girls and boys socialised differently in our culture?

Write down ideas or collect pictures from magazines to illustrate this page.

| |typical for girls |typical for boys |

|Clothes | | |

|Television | | |

|Computer games | | |

|Hair | | |

|Toys | | |

|Bed clothes | | |

Some other ideas:

Gender Socialisation Development work

1. Look in magazines. Find and cut out pictures of

• men doing ‘male’ things,

• men doing ‘female’ things,

• women doing ‘male’ things

• women doing ‘female’ things

What do you notice about how the media portray about the roles and personalities of males and females?

2. Design a poster to encourage men to want to look after children as a career.

3. Suggest ways of encouraging girls to take on more masculine roles in society.

4. Conduct a survey of parents to consider what kinds of toys they think are suitable for girls and for boys.

5. Write an essay explaining how girls and boys are brought up differently using the notes you have made on this topic, your own research and on the previous pages as a plan.

6. How would you design a study into whether girls and boys play with different toys? If you design a good study, you can try it out in a school or nursery if you wish.

7. Find out more about the lives of women in the past and the lives of women now. What differences are there? Ask someone who is older such as your Grandmother or an older teacher.

8. Find out more about the lives of men in the past and the lives of men now. What differences are there? Ask someone who is older such as your grandfather or an older teacher.

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