Historically,
men have always been the breadwinners and the head in society, and women would
usually depend on men. Now days, women are starting to take a more active role
in their careers and are trying to gain the same amount of power as men have in
society. In recent years, this idea that
men have more power in society than women has started to change due to all the
new achievements that women have accomplished.
In today’s world, women are head of corporations, own their own
businesses, and tend to be very active in their communities. Bearing that
point, years back it was easy to say that men had the power in our society, but
now that idea has started to shift in many cultures and women have started to
gain more respect and recognition in today’s society.
In my
discussion with the North American students, it was clear that women in the
U.S. are starting to gain the same amount of power like men in society. Now
days, women do not rely on men, in order to maintain a family. Also, in our
discussion it was interesting to hear that women not only the U.S., but also in
other cultures are going in the same direction. I learned that besides the
power differentiation between genders, there are other factors that also impact
society. Gender differentiation appears
early in life. An easy example would be dressing girls in pink and boys in
blue. Usually, women are taught to be nice and gentle, while men are taught to
be tough and strong. As we grow up, these differences get deeper and deeper;
girls tend to gain popular attention by their attractiveness and boys gain
popular attention by showing leadership and endurance. One of the main
differences between men and women is how they interact with each other. Women,
because of their nurturing skills tend to be gentler, caring and like proximity
when talking to others. Because of that, women are not seen as strong as men.
Men, on the other hand, like to have their personal space when talking to
others and tend to speak firmly giving us that feeling of confidence. Factors
such as physical space, eye patterns, gestures, clothing style and hairstyles
are all the aspects that differentiate women from men in various cultures.
Men and women behave differently, because
society demands it. As we discussed in class, a culture is composed of many
sub-cultures and I think that gender is one of them. As the book points out,
gender differentiation is a vital part of any social group’s structure of
domination and subordination and division of labor in the family. That is one
of the main reasons why I want to encourage everybody to try to understand the
role of gender differentiation in a society, because if we are able to
understand that it would be easier for us to understand the culture itself.
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