Gender Roles in the United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explores possible sources of gender roles and discusses some of the problems they create for society, as well as proposing some solutions. In this essay, the writer examines and compares two works concerning the issue of gender roles. The writer studies Judith Lorber's article 'Night to His Day' and the work 'Masculinity as Homophobia' by Michael S. Kimmel. The writer maintains that the fight for the civil rights of all people in the United States seems promising. Further, the writer notes that equality for both race and gender has come a long way since the early 20th century, but there is still a lot of work to do. The writer concludes that if gender role segregation continues, the opposition of sexes will continue indefinitely and that it seems that the best way to solve this problem is to fight to stop gender role enforcement from birth.

From the Paper:

"When it comes to defining people from a sexual perspective in the United States, people often confuse two words: sex and gender. The word "sex" has a purely biological definition, creating the categories of male and female. "Gender" has a completely different connotation, and contains many more than two categories. Gender roles in society are incredibly pervasive, and play an important role in defining a person. According to Judith Lorber in her article 'Night to His Day', children learn to play certain gender roles from birth, receiving cues from many different sources. In Michael S. Kimmel's 'Masculinity as Homophobia', the author focuses more on the male experience, focusing on how males learn and "perform" these roles that define our society. These articles contain a lot of similar themes, and at certain points it seems like they compliment or expand on each other. At the core of the concept of gender it is observable that both sexes receive subliminal cues from influential figures that attempt to define their actions for the rest of their lives; however, the separate expectations that apply to each sex are striking in their dissimilarity."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Kimmel, S. Michael. "Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity." Race, Class and Gender in the United States. Ed. Paula S. Rothenburg. New Jersey: Worth Publishers, 2004. 81-93.
• Lorber, Judith. "Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender." Race, Class and Gender in the United States. Ed. Paula S. Rothenburg. New Jersey: Worth Publishers, 2004. 81-93.

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