Course Project II: Gender Case Study

Gender Roles, Identity, and Stereotyping Across Three Generations

Introduction

Gender roles, identity, and stereotyping are phenomena that are common across all generations. However, these practices differ among different age groups. For instance, people of nearly all age groups readily attribute masculine gender to physicians, politicians, and technicians. Stereotypes that relate to femininity and masculinity often apply differently in terms of strength at different levels. There is a scattered proof that both women and men view themselves in less stereotypic regards as they age (Kalfoss, 2016). Views on gender are often dynamic across all age groups. To explore views on gender across three age groups, an interview was conducted. Three participants were selected from across different groups (20-35, 36-49, and 50-65). The interview revealed that while all these groups of people have gender-defined roles, stereotypes, and identities, such factors are considered in varying ways. For instance, young adults do not have strong gender-related stereotypes compared to their elderly counterparts. The findings of the interview are discussed in this report.

Project: Interview Report

Findings on Young Adults’ (20-35) views on gender Issues

Demographic Description of the Respondent

The respondent who was selected for the interview was a male young adult aged 25 years. While his name was not disclosed for confidentiality purposes, his racial identity, level of education, and socio-economic status were the main demographic features that were detected and recorded. The participant is a University graduate from a middle-class family in Ohio. He is not only a White, but also from a predominantly white village in Cleveland, Ohio. As a young American, the respondent holds the view that providing education for all groups of people and promoting reduction in inequality is extremely important for the prosperity of the American society, especially the youths. However, he does not believe that marrying and having children are not very important for adulthood. The respondent also asserts that young individuals are delaying in their marriage (Gerson, 2010). This is partly brought by the fact that there is increased unemployment rates and scarcity of opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Furthermore, the respondent still lives with his parents. He states that he still occupies one of the bedrooms of his father’s home. However, the participant states that he longs to live away from his parents’ home because they differ in ideologies and morals about issues related to gender roles and stereotyping. The participant also falls below the bottom-line income. This is partly attributed to widespread unemployment rates.

Participant’s views on Gender Issues

As a young adult, the respondent states that his gender identity began when he was a child after being born. During his early childhood stage, he states that the genesis of his gender identification and stereotyping started when he was given a blue name plate as a child. Later in his teenage life, he recalls his sister being born. Since it was a female baby, he participant notes that she was given a pink name plate in hospital. To him, this raised fundamental issues consciousness of colors across different genders. Therefore, he notes that immediately his family members and friends discovered the sex of his baby sister, the parents began the process of assigning preferred clothing and materials in accordance with the gender type. For boys, everything that was assigned was blue while all girlish clothes and playing toys were pinkish and bright materials. According to the participant he toys appeared to be sex typed. For instance, he remembers being conscious of his gender when he saw all toys meant for boys labeled as ‘boys’ toys while those meant for girls were labeled as ‘girls’ toys’. The respondent also stated that his sister used to be given dolls and stuffed animals with which to play. Thereafter, when given a choice between a doll and a car toy, she would choose the doll. Thus, she could not get reinforcement for playing with the trains since she is not exposed to one. In view of the above, the participant states that parents should not punish their children for sex-inappropriate choices. Instead, they should only limit the child’s exposure to toys to sex-appropriate ones.

Sometimes, young adults differ with their parents in the way that they view gender roles. For instance, the participant states that he and his sister shave to go through a rather stressed family life with parents who seem to be weary of their wellbeing. For instance, his sister complains that she must take part in all domestic chores as family members run in and out of their homes like a bus station. This suggests that she views the issue of gender is viewed differently among young adults from their middle-age counterparts. The same sentiments are often raised by the participant, who states that he must act like a man all the times even when he is obviously distressed. In one instance, he was compelled to plough a large chunk of land in while his sister sat watching her do the entire donkey work. To him, he feels that there is need to redefine gender roles from the traditional masculine-feminine perspective to a liberal one in which males and females can switch their roles on a regular basis. He also recalls being told to act like a man when he started to cry after being beaten by a gang of bullies. To him, the conservative views about gender and universally assigned gender roles should be reviewed in the changing world. This is because he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in food and nutrition, which is predominantly a feminine area of professionalism, while some of his female friends are undertaking technical degrees that were previously a reserve for men. Therefore, young adults aged between 20-35 years are inclined towards a liberal view on gender roles. This is because more and more women are joining STEM courses that were associated with men in the past. Men are also increasingly performing household chores, which were not common in the last ten decades.

Findings on Middle-Age Adults’ (36-49 years) views on gender Issues

Demographic Description of the Respondent

The young adults’ views on gender are somewhat shifting. However, they are partially rooted in the conservative ideals about gender. The middle-age generations have been exposed to more interpretative contexts than the young adults. The respondent who was selected for the interview is a female black person aged 37 years. She is a nursing graduate from Massachusetts University. Apart from her level of education, the participant comes from a middle-income family. Her husband is aged 47 years. In addition, they have two children, a male and a female who are currently in their teenage years. Since she has lived to witness the emerging millennial population, she states that her views on gender are multifaceted and integrated in that she is ready to partially accept more liberal cultures about gender construction. This is because she can switch between how they viewed things in the past and how they consider them today. In some situations, this makes it difficult to tell what degree a recollection should mainly be regarded as a construction of the present.

The participant states that her upbringing played an integral role in defining and redefining the ways in which she views gender. As a child, the participant recollects about the hardships that they underwent. She draws a strong comparison between her youthful years and the present moment. This is because she talks about what she regards as the moral decays of the modern times by stating that women in the past were submissive to their husbands but today they take up the roles that were initially preserved for their male counterparts. She also observes that her husband is reluctant to make clear judgments. This is because while this generation grew in a conservative environment, education served as a major factor in the way that they considered gender.

When it comes to gender roles, middle-age adults view them as redefined and renegotiated. This means that unlike elderly people, middle-age adults strike a balance between the conservative views on gender and the emerging concepts of gender as redefined by their millennial children and young adults. Therefore, while they understand that men should perform masculine tasks such as breadwinner role, protecting the home, and studying to get white-collar jobs, they know that there is a paradigm shift in the way that such roles are exercised. For instance, they are not strictly masculine because they know that their girl children are also pursuing degree programs that were initially preserved for males during their times. Moreover, the changing economic situations have also made it harder for males to fully perform all breadwinner roles. The respondent states that she sometimes steps in to help her husband pay fees by contributing some fees whenever her husband is in a bad economic state. In some situations, her husband helps her to perform household chores, especially when she is sick. This also happens when she is not around and the man of the house must take care of all the kids’ affairs.

Most middle-age adults consider their stages of life as characterized by better physical and psychological health. Unlike during their younger years, they feel that they have more life satisfaction. This is partly attributed to the fact that they have already accumulated enough wealth ahead of their elderly years. This makes it possible to treat the issue of gender roles in a simple fashion. Transitioning in work setting and the relationship between young adults and their parents change with time. The absence of family responsibilities because of departure of children plays a major role in reducing the hardship of women’s’ roles as home makers. For instance, the participant states that immediately their children turned into adults, they sought to live on their own. This eased her burden of having to perform the home-maker role. She did not have to worry about coming home late because her children were never around. Her husband was also comfortable with taking her to honeymoon since there were fewer family responsibilities. To her, the transition was more positive than negative. Their socio-economic status also plays a role in defining the kind of responsibilities that they need to undertake. This is because her husband decided to hire a housemaid instead of subjecting her to all household chores. The husband also hired a ploughman to look after garden issues. Therefore, during midlife, men and women become more traditionally gendered. However, there is a significant aspect of crossover of gender roles as opposed to expansion of such roles.

From the above findings, it was revealed that women in their middle ages tend to desire an emotional and mental bonding with their spouses than men. However, the participant states that men appear to have a greater tendency to respond to physical cues. Furthermore, she states that during their youthful years, sexual intercourse was highly reserved for those who loved them. This reflects a divergence of views from the modern youths who engage in sexual intercourse for the sake of fun. According to her, this kind of misunderstandings on the issue of sexual intercourse and relations are the causes of misunderstanding among young adults of the modern times. This is she states that men were never allowed to socially associate with women in the past until they reached their optimal years of marriage. Today, this shifting practice has increased the number of teen pregnancies among young adults.

Views about women and men in this age group, including stereotypes, vary significantly. According to data gathered from the participant, women are often regarded as emotional and friendly. Men, on the other hand, are normally viewed as aggressive, assertive, and domineering. These views are also seen when it comes to physical strength. In this respect, women are socially regarded as physically weak, while men are muscular and stronger than their male counterparts. It is due to the attributes of physical strength that men are considered as protectors of families while women look after household chores. Physical strength also defines roles across genders in the sense that men are required assigned hard labor in the society and at home, while women often perform jobs that are not labor-intensive. Such roles include washing the dishes, cleaning children, and serving visitors. Men, on the other hand, are required to perform labor-intensive works such as offloading the vehicle, ploughing the home garden, as well as acting as security personnel. However, she notes that across all gender and age groups, the study reveals that men regard women targets in all negative manners than their women raters.

Elderly Adults (50-65 years)

To investigate the views about gender by the elderly population, one person who represents this group was selected for participation. The individual selected was a male aged 62 years. Apart from his age, the participant was a college graduate with vast knowledge and experience in banking and communication. His life as a top manager in one of the leading banking institution in the United States encouraged him to consent to being interviewed. The participant felt that the dynamics of gender are some of the most important issues that the American social system is confronting even in the twenty first century. In his view as an aging person, the issue of gender stereotyping is strongest among the elderly (Morris, 2016). This is because they grew in a generation that limited the roles of women to the kitchen. The participant states that most elderly people are the highest perpetrators of gender-based stereotyping. This is because a significant number of his friends have not yet adapted to the changing gender roles associated with the 21st century. Thus, they are still leading in conservative ideals. For example, he states that he cannot imagine a woman projecting her voice in front of her and hurling insults. To him, women should remain totally submissive to men, who must always be above them, irrespective of their levels of education and income.

As a manager, the participant disclosed that there is instance in which elderly people at top and junior level of employment have expressed gender-based stereotypes towards women and men. To him, gender-based stereotypes are some of the sources of great deal of bias against women in the workplace. Such stereotypes lead to major barriers to their leadership. For instance, elderly individuals develop gender-based stereotypes tend to describe women as relationship-oriented, warm, friendly, nurturing, and helpful (Rudman & Glick, 2012). Men, on the other hand, are considered as confident, assertive, and decisive in nature. Elderly people’s views on gender-based stereotypes tend to be drawn from both descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes. According to the participant, the descriptive stereotypes tend to regard people in terms of what women and men look like in general terms. Prescriptive ones, on the other hand, tend to view women and men in terms of how they should look like. For instance, the elderly people regards tend to regard women are warm while men are strong. They form the basis of what the social system deems desirable for women and men. Prescriptive stereotypes represent behavioral norms that people should uphold or avert negative perceptions.

At household and workplace levels, the elderly people view women as lacking the features that are stereotypically related to effective leadership. On the contrary, men are regarded as possessing leadership attributes that are required to run organizations. According to the participant, due to this lack of fit between the female gender stereotype and the leadership stereotype, men are anticipated to be better leaders (Rudman & Glick, 2012). Most top company leaders who belong to the elderly populations regard men as capable of better leaders and are consequently more favored for top positions than their women counterparts. As a matter of fact, there are many biases that he observes that are drawn from gender stereotypes in the workplace. For instance, women are subjected to low expectations. This is because they are scrutinized, usually because of reduced expectations regarding their leadership capabilities. As a result, they are never easily promoted to top managerial positions. The above low expectations not only influence the interpretations regarding female leaders’ behaviors, but they also affect assessments of women leaders, regardless of their capabilities and qualifications. Therefore, the participant disclosed that people who belong to his generation expect women to be less effective than men, although they never get the opportunity to prove themselves as worthy of the opportunities that they apply for.

Another stereotype against women that is commonly extended to this generation is the idea that women in other areas of life such as technical jobs and leadership positions are expected to fail to deliver they are regarded as less intelligent or smart in comparison with men. For instance, when the participant once revealed that during his tenure as a top manager, he recalls an important client, who was also old, telling the female customer care attendant that women are not smart and that is why not many of them work in that position (Kalfoss, 2016). Therefore, to these elderly groups, being a woman is somewhat a major barrier to career development and progression. Another negative stereotype that is extended to women by the elderly population is the idea that women have double standards of competence. In this respect, he states that their elderly friends also agree with the fact that people’s information searching and processing procedures tend to be biased. They normally examine information that affirms their stereotypical beliefs. They interpret the issue of gender in a manner that is in line with their frames of reference that are somewhat shaped by stereotypical views. The same information regarding men versus women can result in very different interpretations or assessments. Finally, the elderly participant revealed that women face challenges associated with work-life conflicts more than men. This is because he reveals that he expects his wife to be at hope by 8 in the evening to look after her children, whether she is on official duties of the state or attending top managerial meetings. However, he thinks that men should not be answerable to their spouses on the issue of coming home late because they are working for the sake of their families’ wellbeing.

References

Gerson, K. (2010). The unfinished revolution: How a new generation is reshaping family, work,

and gender in America. Center for Digital Philosophy.

Kalfoss, M. (2016). Gender Differences in Attitudes to Ageing among Norwegian Older Adults.

Open Journal of Nursing, 6(3), 255.

Morris, M. (2016). Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools. New York: New

Press.

Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2012). The social psychology of gender: How power and intimacy

shape gender relations. New York: Guilford Press.