“Boys are meant to be dominant, aggressive and stand firmly in their tough emotions,” said one parent to a son. “Girls are meant to be nurturing caregivers who stay at home, serving their husband and bearing children,” said the same parent to a daughter.
At a young age, these harmful beliefs are enforced and placed in children’s minds. Some, if not most, don’t seem to question it, believing these stereotypes to be righteous and inherent of their genders. These ideas, divisive as they may be, have been held and reinforced for as long as we’ve walked the earth, instilling a sense of deep shame for those who don’t comply. Do these ideals truly bring order to our society, or do they seek only to confine and restrict the way people express themselves?
As I said, most people don’t seem to pay much attention to the gender roles they’ve been surrounded with their entire lives. Not noticing these norms, however, doesn’t mean that their impact is only exclusive to people who don’t fit into this specific gender binary. Most don’t seem to notice, but gender stereotypes affect everyone, whether it be treating men as superior to women, or treating women as if they aren’t as capable as men are. It’s unfortunately true that the dreams and aspirations of starry-eyed children may be crushed in an instant when their dream jobs are not perceived as fit for a woman, such as politics or engineering, or too feminine for a man, such as education or nursing. Dreams are shut down, and norms are further perpetuated on children who are taught not to question these ideals, as doing so would be a sign of defying and disrespecting authority. Consequently, young adults will wind up unhappy with the career choice that they choose instead of pursuing something that they can be fulfilled doing. Particular jobs are dominated by either gender as a result of being stereotypically defined.
This issue extends not just to jobs but also to other things like the manner in which someone presents himself or herself or the way someone behaves and manages emotions. Although this isn’t representative of everyone’s experiences, it’s undeniable that this is the truth for a majority of people, whether they were aware of gender stereotyping or not. These beliefs have profound effects on how people view the world, even if they don’t realize it.
In societies with rigid and traditional gender structures, the most common perpetrators in women’s violence are men. It’s no wonder that women are primary victims of sexual assault because gender norms associate masculinity with aggression and domination and femininity with submission and obedience. The idea that women are meant to be subservient to men further preserves this notion, leading to cases of sexual assault being dismissed and deemed as baseless. Sexual assault remains one of the most underreported crimes because victims feel ashamed to step forward about their experiences. The power imbalance between masculinity and femininity legitimizes these cases, as they provide a reason why women are often treated and perceived more as objects than people. Although this reason isn’t justified, it’s normalized.
The effects of gender norms encompass so many parts of our daily lives, but I can’t eloquently put into words the ways in which it affects people as I find it to be an exceedingly complicated and nuanced topic. At the end of the day, I’ve always been a vehement supporter of allowing people to express themselves however they want, as long as it doesn’t directly hurt someone else. People should have the freedom to be who they want to be without fear of being judged or shunned in society. Too often we let trivial beliefs and stereotypes fog our judgment.
