What do you think about the changing gender roles in the modern society?
In general, gender roles have noticeably altered a lot in the past decades. In the old days, women had no right to study, to work, and even to vote in democratic countries. Nowadays, women could decide their professions and freely deliver personal opinions in the modern society. Take politics for example, there are five female leaders around the world, currently including Sahle-Work Zewde in Zimbabwe, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Katrín Jakobsdótt in Iceland, Angela Merkel in Germany, and Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan. It shows that more women are willing to devote themselves to the occupations, rather than the only option which used to be marriage, housekeeping, and childcare. This may be true, but gender bias still exists in most countries of the world. In this essay, I will look at some of the stereotypes and the impacts on gender equality.
Despite the fact that women have been able to obtain better jobs and salaries in business, and even in politics. Considering significant positions in top management, the percentage of men is much bigger than women. Some social values have been inherited generationally. Many argue that married women always face the dilemma to choose either family or career, especially after pregnancy and motherhood. This is a common question in many cultures. Women have been designated to take care of the family duties, such as cooking, raising children, doing all the house chores, and maintaining a relationship with the husband’s family. In terms of conventional role, men are perceived to take the responsibility for breadwinner, which means only making money. Hence, this becomes a big burden for women in order to meet the expectation of being a so-called good wife and mother. Furthermore, this also affects the positions and salary packages between men and women. Human Resources and top managers would assume that women could not fully contribute to their workforce, in comparison to men. Thus, they would differentiate job titles and pay levels based on genders, instead of capabilities and professional skills.
Some people point out that Act of Gender Equality in Employment has been put into practice in many developing countries. However, to change people’s mindset is more important. In my opinion, most laws and orders are regulated by men. It could be debatable whether they truly take women’s benefits into careful consideration. Next, subconsciously, women have been brainwashed and educated by their mothers for pursuit of the traditional values. I believe that many women would embrace expected qualifications and would be against the modern ideas in relation of gender equality. This could be seen on dating sites or dating apps. The requirements remain the same for both genders. Not to mention that in working places, many career women try their best to play men’s images for being tough and emotionless. Some of them even dress like men for avoiding the bias of conventional women’s icons.In conclusion, I think traditional values that are inherited from past generations need to be changed and women need to be self-aware of the modern times. For example, in terms of colors, pink does not necessarily belong to girls. Blue does not mean boys’ color, either. In addition, girls could play cars and dinosaurs which are so-called boys’ toys. So do boys play dolls. We do not have to subconsciously define genders based on conventional stereotypes. As a result of this, the conventional values would not be inherited in family to the next generation. In addition, gender education in schools plays a very important role for both genders. All humans are born equal. Each individual should be respected in regardless of gender preferences. Finally, law amendment should be a continuous work for a modern society. There is still an exuberant amount of work to be undertaken before the world reaches gender equality and fairness for both sexes.
