OverviewGender Roles are the behavioural expectations for women and men. Culture and society has an enormous impact on gender roles. People from different countries around the world read and see thousands of cultural news each week regarding gender roles, including advertisements, movies, TV, music, magazines and family influences. People assess these messages to understand expectations for their gender and how they should work within society. While many people and organizations challenge these traditional gender roles, the influence of mainstream culture remains obvious.
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WorkforceFrom an early age, children learn what the expectations are about gender-appropriate jobs. Girls play house and family or teacher games while boys play war or superheroes games. Children learn these certain behaviours from family and cultural influences. These early suggestions to gender stereotypical careers set the basis as a way of thinking about future jobs. The traditional occupations for women include: secretaries, housewives, teachers, waitresses and nurses. Traditional male occupations include police officers, construction workers, truck drivers, factory workers and bosses or CEOs of businesses. While gender distribution in certain jobs is slowly changing, traditional gender roles run deep in the work force. All cultures view various jobs differently. For example, certain jobs in middle eastern countries are only for the male gender whether in western countries all professions are open to all genders.
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FamilyWomen are traditionally the caregivers of children and homemakers. They normally do more housework, including laundry, washing dishes, cleaning and cooking. Movies, TV and other forms of media often reinforce these traditional roles within their characters. According to a self-reported study from USA Today, men were reported doing 37.3% of the housework. Women in the study reported that men do even less than that percentage. Women also report spending more time taking care of children than their male partner. From the same source, women are also more likely to serve as a caregiver for an elderly parent. In the Saudi Arabian culture the females are looked upon as the female slave of the house. She is expected to clean the house and look after all of the children. Home life for these women is extremely difficult when living in these harsh conditions.
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