Throughout the generations and societies of the world the idea of gender roles can be found in each and every single one. Every human being, in their own time and own way, has had a thought to how the roles of each gender should be played out. Society uses whatever image it chooses in order to convey what it thinks the gender roles should be at the time and is very capable of controlling the way people think, act, and behave. However, our generation as well as the last few generations have had the interesting experience of living in a society in which long established gender roles are being challenged more and more everyday.
Everyone knows the long and stereotypical list of jobs that guys do and jobs that girls do as well as the different toys that each are supposed to play with when they’re little. We all also know how the boy that plays with dolls and the girl that plays with trucks get treated when they’re little. Neither one of these things has really changed at all up until today, but why then does the idea of gender roles seem to be diminishing every single day? Personally, I believe it has almost everything to do with the family (parents) and the people that you are surrounded by at a young age.
Gender roles as defined in the book Choices in Relationships are the social norms that dictate what is socially regarded as appropriate female and male behavior. As children grow up, they essentially learn these specific traits and behaviors from their parents and other children they are around. Children also learn these behaviors from television, radio, movies, magazines and almost every other media that exists. The book describes this issue by saying, “Media images of women and men typically conform to traditional gender stereotypes, and media portrayals depicting the exploitation, victimization, and sexual objectification of woman are common.”(pg.90) In a sense, the way children identify with their gender roles is directly influenced by the mass media and...