Gender Roles

How we're expected to act, speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves based upon our assigned sex.

There are 3 types:

Traditional: girls and women are generally expected to dress in typically feminine ways and be polite, accommodating, and nurturing. Men are generally expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold.

Transitional: Men and women might hold equal roles at work as well as at home. Transitional perceptions lie midway between traditional role segregation and egalitarian attitudes.

Egalitarian: the idea that individuals should have access to the same rights and opportunities irrespective of their sex, and should be treated according to the same principles, norms, and standards

Traditional Gender Roles

Women:

- Cooking, nursing and care taking
- Women wear skirts
- Girls play with dolls

Men:

- Work while spouse is at home
- Men wear pants
- Boys play outside

Based on traditional gender roles we have the stereotypes

Women:

- Not aggressive
- Dependent
- Easily influenced
- Submissive
- Passive
- Home-oriented
- Easily hurt emotionally
- Indecisive
- Talkative
- Gentle
- Sensitive to other’s feel
- Very desirous of security
- Cries a lot
- Emotional
- Verbal
- Kind
- Tactful
- Nurturing

Men:

- Aggressive
- Independent
- Not easily influenced
- Dominant
- Active
- Wordly
- Not easily hurt emotionally
- Decisive
- Not at all talkative
- Tough
- Less sensitive to other’s feelings
- Not very desirous of security
- Rarely cries
- Logical
- Analytical
- Cruel
- Blunt
- Not nurturing

Negative impacts of heteropatriarchy

Things that have been normalized but shouldn’t be

Women:

In heteropatriarchal society, due to the fact that they are seen as inferior by most, women are subject to microaggressions on a daily basis. These happen at work, in the streets, on social media, etc.

- Sexist language: “don’t be a pussy”
- Sexual Harrassment
- Slut Shamming
- Victim Blamming
- Tone Policing
- Mansplanning
- Objectification

Feminicides: The killing of a woman by an intimate partner and the death of a woman as a result of a practice that is harmful to women. An intimate partner is understood as a former or current spouse or partner, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.

When walking in the streets of Paris (France), you can see a lot of collages on the walls denouncing feminicides.

Rape culture: a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.
Because women are expected to do what men want/ask them to do rape
If not they will use other ways to have what they want for example spiking (GHB).
#BalanceTonBar in France & Belgium (https://www.instagram.com/balance_ton_bar/?hl=fr ) + protests in France, Belgium, England
- Male dominated industries & unequal pay
- Feminine traits are discriminated/ seen as negative

Men:

“Boys will be boys”, for decades this phrase has been used to excuse to natural rowdy behavior for young boys which later also becomes an excuse for criminal activity of boys and men like rape, assault and even murder.

Researches have shown that men are more likely to suffer depression/suicides and substance abuse because they are not openly talking about their emotions.

Pressure to meet manhood standards can result in an internalized conflict.
- Big voice
- Love sport
- Pushed to go to any extent (cheating, violence, threat to win)
- Homophobia
-Doesn’t want to earn less than their spouses (emasculated)

Men are scared to talk when they are victim of rape wether it is a male on male agression or a female on male agression.
Personal stories of male rape mirror female rape in terms of a sense of shame, humiliation, and self-blame, but males are even less likely than females to report an assault.

Most research focus on male on male rape while female on male sexual assault are still underreported. Is it because women are not seen as predators? Because men are ashamed to speak up? Because they are scared nobody will believe them? Because we think men always want sex?