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sorry, I know this is late…
I know many people that because Hillary Clinton is female they will not be voting for her for president. It’s obviously mostly guys that feel this way. I think they are threatened by the fact that a woman will have power over them. For example, a lot of my guy friends hate it when they ride with girls when the girl is driving. They feel they have to be in control and they obviously aren’t when they are riding shotgun. I’ve talked to these guys on this subject and they all think that women in general are bad drivers also, which is another reason they don’t drive with them.
Unlike the past, I don’t think men are as threatened by women in the workplace. However, in government positions, it has been a much slower adjustment. Just recently are women being recognized in politics. Take Condoleezza Rice for example. She has worked her way up to the 66th US secretary of state, becoming the first black women to hold this position in 2005. And now, in 2008 we may be voting for a woman to become president. Women have taken huge steps to gain respect and authority in our government. You’re seeing more and more females becoming politicians. Like I mentioned before, Some men are still threatened by this. I personally don’t like Hillary Clinton as a person or president, but I would love to see a woman president…just not her. Having a woman president would be a big step not only for our country, but for the rest of the world also. Some countries still have many gender equality issues and if our country could have a woman president, that might benefit those countries too. In these other countries, women can’t own anything, can’t show their faces, etc. Having a woman elected as president in the US would be a model for other countries to follow, so maybe oneday there could be equality for women everywhere.
–kristen mannino
I think specifying a certain job to a certain gender is ridicules. In the past things may have worked like this, but I think it’s starting to disappear more today. In the past it was unlikely for a female to even have a job. If a female was the one to take care of the house then her husband was looked down upon. More and more today, females do have jobs. In some work places it is even more common for a female to have that job then a male. Also, more and more today, females are the ones that are taking care of the household expenses and the husbands are the ones staying home to take care of the kids. Personally, I feel that when I get older I want to be an orthodontist and be the one in the household to make the most money. I want to be able to support myself and my children without having to have the income of another person in case I need to.
Although it is nice for this change in society, I still think its wrong for females or males go get paid different amounts if their doing the same exact job. Here are some facts about working women. In 2004, women in the United States were paid 76 cents for every dollar men received for comparable work. I think this is unfair. Being a women in the United States, this would be good for me, but I still see it unfair to he men. If single women earned as much as men in comparable jobs, their incomes would rise by 13.4 percent and their poverty rates would be reduced from 6.3 percent to 1 percent. Again, this is unfair to males. It is not their fault that a woman is single. They are working just as hard as that female at their job and should be getting treated equally.
Personally, being a female in the United States, I just want to be treated equal. That is what women have worked for for so many years and that’s how I want to be treated. Yes, these increases in pay would benefit me, but if I’m doing the same job as a man, we should be getting paid the same. If I found out that I guy was making more money then me and we were doing the same job, I would be mad. So I’m sure a man would not be happy to find out that I’m making more money for do the same job as him.
slac.rso.wisc.edu/flyers/WorkingWomen.doc
Lynnette Leimback
Recently I watched the movie, “Deathproof.” The movie did a good job of deviating away from usual gender roles. First off, anything that has to do with cars is instantly related to as a “guy-thing.” Car chase films usually portray a villain and a hero chasing each other back and forth. The drivers are usually males. This film went ahead with the usual male villain, but filled in the roles of the victims and the heroes as females characters (A slight relationship with my previous blog: this movie puts a smile on Danica Patrick’s face). There are many negative things males tend to say about female drivers, such as: “girls can’t drive” or “girls cause most accidents.” The movie not only shows that guys can cause accidents too, as in the case of the nutcase-of-a-lunatic Mr. Stuntman Mike, but also the fact that girls can outsmart and save the day too. By watching the first half of the movie, one would think that the second group of girls from the next scene would probably get killed too and the cops that are shown during the intermission between the two scenes would finally get a hold of Stuntman Mike and lock this guy up forever. What is surprising in the second half is how well the group of girls handle Mike and give him an ass-whipping most guys would never see in their worst nightmares. Even as a guy, it made me feel great that the girls were able to justify Mike’s actions and fulfilled my wishes of karma coming around and biting Mike for what he did to the previous women. Stuntman Mike is obviously the masculine-macho type guy. The first group of girls (Jungle Julia’s crew) represent the feminine aspect of characters. However, the last group of girls (Zoe and her posse) represent both, masculine and feminine. At first, before meeting Stuntman Mike, the girls show their usual feminine sides, such as adoring the Italian issue of a renowned magazine, putting on makeup, gossiping, etc. However, as soon as the go to visit the car and Zoe goes on her adventurous joy-ride, they start to show their masculine side. They are “fully masculine” by the time they begin their cat and mouse chase with Mike. I would have to say this movie did a wonderful job of giving its viewers a different side to gender roles in America.
Source: Tarantino, Quentin. “Deathproof.” September 18, 2007.
mOE wADUD
In some cases in today’s society gender roles are reversed. In previous decades the male figure in the realationship was always the one to provide for and work in the family. Now there are many successful women in todays workpalce. It is not uncommon for the women to be the main financial provider for the family. Females years ago rarely went to college. Now just as many women attend college as males do. When my Dad grew up his mother didn’t work. She stayed at home and took care of the family. My mother has a full time job at a hospital and makes just as much money as my father, who works for General Motors.
There are a lot of men today that do not work, some men stay home and take care of the family, like my Grandmother used to do. This is becoming a more accepted lifestyle in today’s world. 53% of working men from the age range of 36 to 50 would be willing to not work and stay at home with the family. Working men from the age range of 51 to 65 were less wanting to be a stay at home dad with a percentage of 38%. The older men might not be as willing to stay at home because they are older and live by the ways of the past., but there is nothing wrong with men staying at home and taking care of the famliy. Some dads are not around enough for their kids and that is a problem. A father figure is very important for the growth of a child, and I think it is great if a dad wants to stay home and help out with the kids.
Women have worked hard over the years to be in the position that they are in now. From not even being able to vote, to being allowed to run for president is a complete turn around. Many women are succesful and make a lot of money, and are making names for themselves, This is changing the country and world for the better because there are just as many women as there are men in this world and women deserve to have sa much of a right as a man to work and support the family.
-Billy Schroeder
In my experiences playing online games there are very confusing gender roles in them. You would think that most people would try and make their character look somewhat like them or what they want to look like. Males would make male characters and females would make female characters. That is not what happens at all. If you come across a male character in world of warcraft is always a male. Completely different story with the female characters, it is probably 65% of the time going to be a male playing the female character.
What is up with the males pretending to be chicks? I don’t understand why guys want to be the female, in world of warcraft approximately one third of the population is female characters, and only 35% are actually female. Some of the guys I know are leveling there wives characters who don’t play as much. Still other then that you come across the creepers that are playing the chicks. For example I was playing one of my guys and I was in a group of people doing stuff and this night elf female used the voice chat in the game and has the deepest voice I have ever heard. I was like who was that, turned out to be the one I least expected. However I have never met a female playing male character. Not sure why there is a double standard there. The only example to show that males play female character is the Toyota World of Warcraft truck commercial. In the commercial there is clearly a female night elf hunter. However, if you listen to the dialog of the commercial it is clearly a males voice for the female night elf hunter.
Genders roles have very little meaning for online games. Males are what ever they want to be. The females are almost always female; very few females play males so that is one of the more strict lines. Over Nine million play world of warcraft, so I wonder of all the people on facebook.com and myspace.com are pretending to be the opposite sex of what they actually are.
Thomas Wakerley
Everyone, at some point in their lifetime, has heard that a man is more likely to get paid higher than a woman. Personally, I do believe that there is that tendancy for businesses to pay men higher than woman. I understand that if a woman is working at a lesser level than her male co-worker, than he should get paid more. Yet, I do not understand why women who work just as hard, if not harder than their male co-worker, may recieve lesser pay. I understand that it is an old issue that has fit itself into now-a-day life. This issue has been here as long as there has been work for men and women. With all the women rights act there are, I cannot understand why there would be a difference in the pay each gender recieves. It may be a slight difference in some cases, but it still exists. Maybe it just keeps guys quiet or something, but if a woman complains about it, then the matter does not even exist. Maybe my beliefs are wrong, but even so, the facts still exist.
I wondered if my thoughts were justified, so I looked up a bunch of articles and reports about gender versus pay. Some articles concluded that the pay rate of woman in comparison to men has leveled out quite a bit from the 1970’s. It was very obvious in the 70’s that female workers were not paid as much as their male co-workers just because of gender. I looked up more recent articles these reports took into consideration different variables other than gender bias. These variables did lessen the gap between a man and a woman’s pay, but the gap between the pay rates were significant. An article described that the gap was between 1% and 3%. These seemingly low percentages do have a significant result. Though some articles had a few descrepencies with each other, they all agreed that men are still recieving more hefty pay than women are.
+Kate Rapp+
Stereotypes have been placed on both genders for centuries. In the book “The World is a text” is states the women are better communicators, men are stronger: men like power tools, women like chick flicks. Just like these stereotypes we as a society tend to make assumptions like this in our everyday lives. I’m going to focus on the exceptations that are placed on women. For centuries it has been expected of women to get married, have children, and take care of all the household duties. Back in the day women were never expected to be in the working society. Nowadays women are placed in some of the highest corporate positions and making more money than men. If a women would rather work then settle down, get married, and have kids she is looked upon as not fullfilling her obligations as a women. I think that it’s great for women to have the opportunity to reproduce children, but some dont want to have children and I feel that we as a society shouldnt frown upon these women. While discussing this topic with my grandma she was telling me about when she was growing up she was excepted to quickly find a husband. Now women go to school, get degrees, and have careers way before they think about settling down. Now we see women getting married and having children later in life. Women rights have progressed over centuries and now we have a women candiate running for President. WHich, would abslolutely be unheard of back in the day. In Middleschools I was always interedt in sports, playing outside and hanging aournd the boys. Teachers would always suggest to me that i should join the other girls and play hopscotch or swing. It was suggested of me to be feminie becuase i was a girl. Just because i was a girl I was excepted to play with the girls. I see expectations of gender constanly daily in many ways. I feel that whatever your intrestes are and like to do, do it. You only live once and it doesnt matter what is expected of you as long as your happy.
Catherine Mulcahy
In today’s society there are so many roles that are looked at as gender specific. However, the lines between the two are starting to blur. For example, women used to be thought to have the job of cooking and cleaning, especially in the kitchen, but more and more men are beginning to take on those jobs and people don’t look at it as wrong. However many years ago, men would have never even dreamed of cooking. They probably would’ve titled it as “a woman’s job”. Gender roles back then were very strict. Most women didn’t even have jobs because it was a “woman’s place” to be at home as a full time mother, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. But now it is the duty of both parents to do whatever’s necessary to provide for their family.
Some other instances where gender expectations are considered are in piercings. A man can have piercings any and everywhere, in their ears, nose, lips, eyebrows, etc. However, if they have their tongue pierced, then they’re looked at as gay. I don’t find this to be true at all. A tongue piercing is not something that can only be gotten by women or gay men. My uncle actually has a tongue ring and he’s as straight as they come. Most straight men get them for sexual reasons that I won’t get in to. Another example is in the nursing profession. Nursing is a profession that is mostly populated by women. However, more and more men are beginning to go to school for nursing and go on to become Registered Nurses (RN’s). Studies show that in 2005 males accounted for 9.7 percent of all baccalaureate graduates. A nice size increase from 5.4 percent in 1996. More women are beginning to go into more male based occupations such as engineering. My mom is actually an industrial engineer and her workplace is majority male.
So gender roles are beginning to disperse more and more as time goes on. Maybe soon we’ll live in a society where males and females can have the same job, or do the same things and the sex of the person won’t even be considered. Just maybe……..
–Nafisah McClendon
At the end April, the school year will come to a close. I will be done with all of my exams and studio projects, and I can finally resume living my life without going to studio for hours at a time. When I do go home, along with hanging out with friends and maybe taking a few summer classes, I will mostly work. I work at a Realty company, updating the website, doing filing work, and occasionally driving around town placing FOR SALE or SOLD signs up. Discussing gender made me think about my job, because after accounting for all of the employees at the firm, there are 2 more females than males. This is sort of surprising to me; because I personally thought that there were more women in realty than men. While this could possibly be true nationwide, I also checked with the realtor that is selling our house and he said that there were one or two more women at his office as well. When my parents bought our house, we bought it from a female realtor. Now we are selling it, and it is a man. My parent’s decision to select a realtor had nothing to do with gender, but more on how well they are known throughout the city, as well as past and current client comments. Each sex has good and bad stereotypes towards being a realtor. Men are known to be convincing and very confident, but can sometimes be arrogant and cocky and may put a lot of pressure on buyers. Women are known to be more caring and in many cases are “more nurturing than men” (Nuwire Investor). In many TV cartoons and shows, the man usually convinces a woman to let him do something even if she has second thoughts. I think that this is a hindrance to women in this business, because buying a house involves a lot of negotiating. Based upon my experience with realty, men and women are equal. The only thing that separates them is personal motivation, persistency, and what they think of themselves.
Ihor Balaban
i am writing about how extreme gender expectations can become. people of our society put a significant amount of labeling and judging on the charistics of other people. nothing is mentioned or commented on behavior that is considered acceptable of a certain gender such as, a guy working on a car, or a women getting her nails done. these behaviors are accepted and not talked about but if a man is doing hair(particularly women) or a women changing a flat tire, is is looked at as strange, mostly questioned. like the article in our text book , The World is a Text, “Reading and Writing about Gender”, it mentions that society tends to punish those who don’t conform to gender roles. so i really do not see this issue ever being completely accepted. these are issues as a society that we keep passing along. it is a learned type of behavior. however, people are taking confidence in themselves mor now and are engaging in things that they enjoy even if it is considered to be for women, or exclisively for men. i personally feel that we are equal and if a woman is dominant, and opiniated, that she has every right to express here self in that way. and on the contrast, the same for a man. if he is soft, or quiet, or emotional then it’s ok. i think if people would open their minds and finally realize that people are going to be themselves no mater what then these gender expectations would start to disappear. Mehriah
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