The Perception of Gender
Robyn Restuccio
Argosy University
How gender is perceived has taken on different meanings and forms throughout time, differing from generation to generation. The terms “gender” and “sex” are to this day thought of as a reflection of one another, but in order to analyze human behavior it is important to distinguish between the two (Diamond, 2004). Males are expected to be masculine and females are expected to be feminine. The way that gender is perceived from generation to generation has changed. For instance, gender nowadays is perceived differently than it was perceived during the 1950s to the 1970s.
In order to have an idea of how the perception of gender has changed over generations a 64 year old woman by the name of Robin who was born in November of 1950, was questioned about how she perceived gender. When asked what the term gender meant to her she stated that gender means whether or not a person is a male or a female. When asked how does it differ? She answered, “Gender classifies a person as male or female and sex is intimacy between two people.” It was apparent that when asked this question that Robin was not quite sure how to answer the question. Almost as if it were slightly difficult to separate the two due to how closely related the two terms are.
Robin was also asked how gender has played a part in how she gained an understanding of her role and responsibilities at home as well as at work. To which she replied that growing up she was taught that females are to have respect for males and that it is the females’ role to cook, clean, and care for the children while it was the males’ role to go outside of the home to work and support his family. When it comes to the work place females were given the lighter duty type positions while males worked the heavier duty type positions.
Gender roles in the workplace have changed since Robin was growing up. This is mainly due to the increase of females joining the...