Talk:Gender role
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[edit] Why is Bem Sex Role Inventory linked to this article?
The Bem Sex Role Inventory is related to Gender Roles, but they are not the same topic. I suggest deleting the link from BSRI to this article, and encourage someone to write a separate article on the former. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.190.18 (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] great page, but one big gaping problem
I think its a bit unfair to have a section called Criticism of Biologism, when theres no section called Biologoism. I suggest you rename this section to Biologism and include research and criticisms.--Urthogie 12:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
- Anyone planning on addressing this?--Urthogie 11:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Notice of intention to nominate for FARC
The article fails to satisfy Criterion 2a ("compelling, even brilliant" prose). Take, for example, the lead.
In the social sciences and humanities, aA gender role is a set of behavioral norms associated with males and with females, respectively, in a given social group or system. Gender is one component of the gender/sex system, which refers to "The the "set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed needs are satisfied" (Reiter 1975: 159.). Every known society has a gender/sex system, although the components and workings of this system vary widely from society to society.
Most researchers recognize that the concrete behavior of individuals is a consequence of both socially enforced rules and values, and individual disposition, whether genetic, unconscious, or conscious. Some researchers emphasize the objective social system and others emphasize subjective orientations and dispositions.
Moreover, such creativity may, over time, cause the rules and values to change. Although all social scientists recognize that cultures and societies are dynamic and change, there have been extensive debates as to how, and how fast, they may change. Such debates are especially intense when they involve the gender/sex system, as people have widely differing views about how much gender depends on biological sex.
- There is much redundancy (see strike throughs).
- What is "concrete"? If a specific term in the context, it requires immediate glossing.
- I can't quite see the difference between "socially enforced rules and values"; use one or the other, or explain on the spot; and why mark the distinction with "both"?
- "genetic, unconscious, or conscious"—Are the second and third items mutually exclusive in relation to the first?
- "objective" vs. "subjective"—This is wobbly; isn't the distinction between social and psychological? Whatever it is, "objective" and "subjecctive" are unclear.
- Stubby second paragraph.
- "Such creativity"—What creativity? In any case, prefer "this/these" to "such" nowadays.
- "the gender/sex system"—Pluralise for consistency? The same throughout the article (avoids the s/he problem, too).
- "how much"—"the extent to which" would be nicer.
In terms of macro-structure, I'm unsure why Talcott Parson's theory is given top billing, before the treatment of more overriding features of gender role. It's rather Western-centric, too. When you think about it, the pic of the bagpiper is pretty Western-centric in its assumptions.
Fix upper-case initial in a subheading.
It could do with a few more inline references; there's a lot of "Some have argued", etc.
Stubby paragraphs.
"However" stuck in the middle of sentences (hard work for the readers).
Plus much more. Needs a thorough revision.
- I think concrete wanted to mean the opposite of general. Is maybe the author a native Hungarian speaker? --Zslevi 11:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I intend to nominate this as a FARC in a week's day's time. (Later modified—the FARC rules do not define what is 'enough time'. Tony 03:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC))
Tony 02:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
- I agree that it shouldn't be a featured article, as it is biased against biologism. In fact, it doesn't even have a biologism section-- it goes right to criticism.--Urthogie 13:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
This is one of most ethnocentric, least universal, most culture-bound articles in the encyclopedia. A reader could not even guess from this article that 99% of known human cultures thoughout time and space have had strongly marked gender roles and thought they were a good thing. The reduction of differences in the upper levels of educated western society in the last 3 decades is a fairly new social phenomenon and we are way too close to it, and too much part of it to even recognize how aberrant and new it is. While it may turn out to be the most wonderful and revolutionary change in human social organization since food storage or cell phones, a century from now it might also be seen as a small, peculiar, transient upper class social phenomenon in a self-destroying culture. At least the understanding and practice of gender role of most human societies should be made clearer to the reader before we begin to pretend this article is anywhere near ready to brag about. alteripse 17:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
- Good observation. I think the reason this article is so biased is because its mainly white, western feminists who write the most about gender roles.--Urthogie 22:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
- Agree. Although we could have a debate about whether gender roles are good or not, it certainly not equals with oppression.
| “ | Girls can wear jeans And cut their hair short |
” |
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- I think this quotation is very much biased. And although a quotation may be biased, this one is presented as a fact. --Zslevi 12:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me, or does this article make ANY sense? It is written in gobbledygook. Also, gender roles are a positive thing. No mean sexist, I actively dislike the old fogies who say, 'a woman's place is in the home'. It is if you want it to be. It does not make you inferior, it simply changes your job. This is why, in my opinion, stay- at- home parents should be subsidised, regardless of gender. It's not fair that others get paid to sit at office desks all the time. This is probably much harder work. This article is nattering on in such insane, incomprehensible language that it does not talk about this- singularly the most important equality issue in the whole world.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.47.204.211 (talk • contribs) 07:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC).
- I agree. --Zslevi 22:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Urthogie, you need to calm down. Most of the "errors" you pointed out are trivial. Just fix them if you don't like them.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.43.36.42 (talk • contribs) 21:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC).
[edit] Scottish Kilt
I have a problem with a scottish kilt being used as an example (First Paragraph). The kilt is a cultural uniform, not a symbol of feminine nature. While during a parade you would not be at all surprised to see a kilt bearing man, in the same situation, seeing a man wearing an actual skirt, you would be taken aback. If possible, could anyone find a better photograph?
- I think that's the point-- it illustrates the subjectivity of gender roles. Kilts can be masculine while skirts, which are very similar, are not. Maybe that needs clarification? IMFromKathlene 04:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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- Semantics. Dress a woman with a kilt, and no one will notice. So what, exactly, makes the kilt "masculine"? This is the point, as I see it: not that the kilt "should" be feminine, but that there's no objective reason to regard it as intrinsically masculine, or skirts as intrinsically feminine. Other than social reasons, of course. FilipeS 20:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I think the more pertinent point in this case is that it's used so high up in the article, and that the kilt isn't referred to in the actual article text. Yes, a kilt may be similar to a skirt in its actual construction, but the caption of the picture implies that in Scotland wearing a skirt in a male gender role *would* be acceptable, whereas it isn't.
- In other words, I think that it should be covered, but not in such a prominent position as it's not a good example of gender role. Also, there should probably be text in the actual article discussing this. --70.85.16.87 10:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
- Whoops, this comment was me not logged in. Sorry. --Ciaran H 10:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] discrimination against women who remain in traditional roles
The sections of this article which currently read, "there is little or no discrimination against women who remain in traditional roles" and "women who choose to live in the classical role of the "stay at home-mother" are acceptable to Western society" seem to express a particular point of view. Some women of my acquaintance who have chosen the traditional, stay-at-home path, express the feeling that their choice is simultaneously reviled by many feminists and belittled by many chauvinists. So whether the discrimination exists or not, it is certainly felt, and the article as it currently stands does not take into account that point of view. Do other Wikipedians finds these passages as egregious as I do? Sdsds 05:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- I agree. --Zslevi 11:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
- "Women of your acquaintance" are of no scientific importance. Anecdotal information is useless when discussing the facts. Just because you are offended by, or disagree with, some point doesn't mean it should be deleted. If there are studies suggesting that women in traditional roles are less likely than others to experience discrimination, then it should be presented. Opinions on either side of the issue should not be included in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.190.18 (talk) 19:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] ridiculously lacking in science
I'm currently reading The Blank Slate, and I'll add stuff from there as I read along. THe article currently gives only a small voice to genetics, only to criticize it vaguely using weasel words, rarely mentioning all the research in this area. Evidence of this article's bias is also shown by the fact that it is more concerned with feminism than science.--Urthogie 19:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
- The Blank Slate is hardly about science; it is really evidence of just how much a non-scientist (in this case, a linguist) misunderstands science. If you really want to know about feminism and science, read Reflections on Gender and Science by Evelyn Fox Keller (a real scientist). Slrubenstein | Talk 11:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Why is a linguist not a scientist?Manormadman (talk) 11:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Manormadman
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- I was unclear, and whould have written "natural scientist." The question is not whether a linguist is or is not a scientist. The question is whether Stephen Pinker is an authority on the science of gender roles, or the natural sciences. He is not. His training and research is in linguistics and if his book were on language, and if this article were on language, perhaps his views would be notable. However, his book is about evolutionary models of human behavior, an area in which he has no training or expertise - in terms of the subject matter of the book, he is as much a non-scientist as if he were writing a book on his views of string-theory. I stick to my original point: of we want to inject more science into this article, the best source is Evelyn Fox Keller´s book (she is a trained and published physicist, and in her book she writes about the relationship between gender and the natural sciences. My point is, she is an expert on the natural sciences and Pinker is not). Slrubenstein | Talk 12:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
- Agree generally with Slrubenstein. In general any source is more reliable in their area of expertise. There's no shortage of biologists, linguistics, sociologists, anthropologists, and other types of scientists and social scientists who have studied the biology and sociology of gender; Pinker is not among them. (Even his linguistics work is not oriented toward gender.) --Lquilter (talk) 00:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
- I was unclear, and whould have written "natural scientist." The question is not whether a linguist is or is not a scientist. The question is whether Stephen Pinker is an authority on the science of gender roles, or the natural sciences. He is not. His training and research is in linguistics and if his book were on language, and if this article were on language, perhaps his views would be notable. However, his book is about evolutionary models of human behavior, an area in which he has no training or expertise - in terms of the subject matter of the book, he is as much a non-scientist as if he were writing a book on his views of string-theory. I stick to my original point: of we want to inject more science into this article, the best source is Evelyn Fox Keller´s book (she is a trained and published physicist, and in her book she writes about the relationship between gender and the natural sciences. My point is, she is an expert on the natural sciences and Pinker is not). Slrubenstein | Talk 12:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Thats definitely not the norm
"In case of conflict, man has the last say, for example in choosing the place to live, choice of school for children, buying decisions"
Maybe somewhere in the world thats the expected, but for everywhere I have ever been, that has not been true. It seems stereotypical that guys -want- to have the last say, but in comedy acts, television, movies, and personal life experiences, the woman is usually portrayed (or in the case of actual experiences, IS) the one in control of the majority of decisions.
So while its easy to blame all gender roles on men, females actually feed this one.
[edit] deleted paragraph
I deleted the following
- Women in most societies are more likely to end up in the role of homemaker. It has been suggested by scientists that biology plays a role in this, while other scientists argue that it is the result of socially constructed gender roles (as well as economic pressures). Many scientists and feminists believe that gender behavioural differences occur because of both factors. However, some have argued that gender roles themselves are abstractions of overall differences between men and women, introducing the idea of circularity and the idea of the social reinforcement of natural tendencies leading to a factitious separation between the activities of males and the activities of females.
because the first sentence is simply wrong, and the rest is already elsewhere in the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
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- Perhaps poorly phrased, but not wrong. Most societies are way less advanced than upper class Western academia. Women in them rule the home and take care of the children, the less advanced the society, the more it is so. This is dictated by factors of economic origin, and more importantly - the law in these societies is often unwritten, passed from generations, and enforced by local power conglomerates, which are in turn composed of stronger/older - basically dominating men, entrusted to maintain order, resolve conflicts, and defend society from outside threats. So, weaker men and women do what the powerful men tell them to do. This is a no-brainer to understand for anyone with a little life experience. But the thing is - in any society power belongs to those who can first and foremost defend themselves - US govt maintains army and police, the difference is - we resolve our conflicts using written laws that anyone (with a lawyer) can comprehend. But overall, we're not that far from the animal kingdom, you know.69.107.82.107 18:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
- I kinda went on a tangent there - my point was that at least 2 important conditions are needed for traditional gender roles to begin to break down. First, the legal system that actually works the way it says it works, so that a weak person could go to court and get justice against a shark. This is only true for a handful of Western democracies, and incidentally, this is where we observe the biggest breakdown of traditional gender roles. They are alive and well in corrupt democracies such as Russia, Brazil etc, not even mentioning the rest of the world.
- Second, someone said that it wasn't women's lib that gave rights to a woman, it was dishwasher, day care, washing machine, a car, etc. The level of society's economic development determines whether a woman takes care of the home and baby herself, or outsources these tasks and goes earning money instead. Last time I checked, most of the world was beyond the poverty line.
- So, if you want to fight those oppressive gender roles, you first have to get past the monsters of poverty and corruption, mkay?69.107.82.107 19:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Where is the scholarship to support your claims? remember, this is not a chat room and we have a policy against original research. Even if there is scholarly literature expressing the view you advocate, it is at best one view among many. There is a good deal of literature that argues that the role of "homemaker" (and what you call "traditional" gender roles) is a specifically western concept and that women in non-agricultural societies (what we call the West is all agricultural because even people working in industry get their food from agriculture) enjoy a fair amount of equality with men and definitely are not "home-makers." The idea of "traditional gender roles" meaning 1950s Western middle-class gender roles understood to be universal and having existed long before industrialization is according to a great number of scholars a Western myth. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Transgender section
Serious organizational issues aside, this section makes completely improper use of the word "transgender". To quote:
"Another example to consider is transgender people, who mix gender roles to form a personally comfortable androgynous combination or transcend the scheme of gender roles completely, regardless of their physiological sex . Transgender people can also be physically androgynous or identify as androgynous."
The author of this section is describing genderqueer, not transgendered. A very large number of transgendered people (possibly the majority) fit the description they use for "transsexual", though not necessarily involving the medical aspects usually associated with transsexualism (which the author doesn't mention). Even allowing for the perspective (which I have seen) that "transsexual" and "genderqueer" are both subsets of "transgender", they are still using the terms confusedly. --M.C. ArZeCh 21:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
- I agree this usage is improper (actually the whole section needs a rewrite). It seems to be describing bigender or androgyne (special cases of genderqueer) here, not transgender. --DavidHopwood 01:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Transgendered is an umbrella term used to describe anyone who does not conform to gender stereotypes and includes "gederqueer", transsexuals, drag kings and drag queens, intersex, gender varient, and some argue all homosexuals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.12.15.254 (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
19:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)147.160.181.8 (talk)Josephine Shaffer== Gender roles and socialization section ==
In majority of the traditional and developmental social systems, an individual has a choice to what should he or she extent as a conformed representative of a socialization process. In this voluntary process, the consequences can be beneficial or malfunctional, minor or severe for every case by a behavior's socialization influence forming gender roles or expectations institutionalizing gender differences. Typical encouragements and expectations of gender role behavior are not as a powerful difference and reforming social trait to a century ago. Such developments and traditional refineries are still a socialization process to and within family values, peer pressures, at the employment centers and in every social system communication medium.
Still, once someone has accepted certain gender roles and gender differences as an expected socialized behavioral norms, these behavior traits become part of the individual's responsibilities not influential roles in gender relationships on a personal and social levels to the individual's own socializing role or self (identity). Sanctions to unwanted behavior and role conflict can be stressful.
What? Can someone who understands what this is trying to say please fix it? I can't even parse the grammar. --DavidHopwood 01:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Neutrality disputed?
Can anyone explain what exactly is being disputed here. I can understand that tags in Gender roles in prisons and The role of ideology in the enculturation. But why is the whole article's neutrality disputed? If somebody can't explain this I'll remove the tag in one week (on 23 September 2007)--Cailil talk 16:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
- Okay the article has been retagged.[1] However there was no edit summary explaining this, nor was there a comment identifying where there is a NPOV problem - please state why you are using tags like {{NPOV}} and {{POV}} so that other users can help. If nobody can say why the article is being tagged by the end of this month (December 2007) I'm going to remove the tag--Cailil talk 23:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
