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Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes
Masculinity describes a set of behaviours, attributes, and roles linked to both boys and men. In contrast, femininity describes the traits or qualities regarded as features if women. The paper explores stereotypical masculinity and femininity and how both genders affirm or contradict them.
How males confirm stereotypical masculinity
Males are characterized as independent. There are serval ways men affirm the stereotypical masculinity, including being selfish. Men usually put themselves first. They prioritize their goals and visions and concentrate on becoming strong (Ackley & Heinle, 391). Males understand that when they display their weaknesses, they would be valued by anyone. It is a belief that when men become strong, it is a depiction that they are independent. Besides, males usually depict financial independence and perceive it as the key to independence. Males have considered being at the mercy of others as dangerous. Therefore, they strive to achieve their financial independence as they realize that it is their responsibility to get rich.
Male display dominance in numerous places. Dominance is ant act of expressing power in certain areas. It is established that men take dominance over women in certain regions. In the political field, the highest number of leaders in the various positions are held by men. It serves as an example of how the male gender dominates the female gender. Their political positions held by men affirm their stereotypical masculinity. Men are found to monopolize the key positions in the military, industry, and government institutions. Despite the continued campaign that has seen women take up some of the positions, the male gender dominates over females in certain areas.
Men display toughness in what they do. Individuals who ac tough usually thrive on feeling such that they possess power over other individuals. In most cases, men want to be seen as being in control, and they typically micromanage other individuals (Katz-Wise et al., p. 18). They may decide to make unreasonable demands on other people. Males affirm stereotypical masculinity of being tough as they do not get easily injured and can quickly deal with a challenging or violent situation. It is accepted for men to depict mental toughness in the situations they face. In most cases, males want to meet a situation on their own and establish solutions.
The one common masculinity among men is that they rarely cry. This is a trait that most men across society try as much as they can to keep it. When faced with situations that are tough and challenging, men do not often cry about the issue. For instance, men rarely cry during the grief period, unlike their female gender. Even though the effect is the same emotionally, males rarely express emotions through crying. This affirms societal expectation that men should remain stable even during challenging situations in life. Male consider difficult situations as a way of enhancing their strength in dealing with difficult situations.
How males contradict stereotypical masculinity
Men are usually penalized for straying from the robust masculinity stereotype. Studies depict that men experience backlash when they fail to observe gender masculinity stereotypes. Men may contradict stereotypical masculinity if they demonstrate empathy, act more beautiful, show vulnerability, exhibit modesty, express sadness, and proclaim to be feminists. Males face challenges in behaving in specific ways that are known to benefit their careers or their teams.
Males contradict stereotypical masculinity by showing vulnerabilities. The social construction of males is that they should not be vulnerable or ask for help. Nevertheless, the concept has been challenged by the male gender’s behaviours since they seek help from others. In the workplace, males may disclose a given weakness, although they are likely to be perceived to possess lower status. Failing to seek help may contribute to less development and mistakes. Therefore, male gender needs to admit their areas of weaknesses to allow improvement.
Society perceives men as unassuming and calm individuals, especially at work. The majority of workmates would love to have more excellent guys in the workplace. Males have adopted specific characteristics that contradict their societal construction. They have characters such as caring, warm, sympathetic, and supportive (Katz-Wise et al., p. 18). The above traits contradict the expected stereotypical masculinity of males. As a result, males acting nicer to others are perceived to lack management potential compared to the less agreeable men. The male gender may function nicer in leadership positions, such as managerial roles where they advocate more for their team than they would do for themselves.
Men also contradict stereotypical masculinity by displaying empathy. In leadership positions, it is expected that managers and leaders should display empathy to their followers. In most cases, females usually receive credit for showing compassion than males. In leaderships, males are compelled to depict excellent interpersonal relationship skills and team-building skills. The behaviour contradicts society’s expectations as they perceive the trait as more inclined to females than males.
Society does not expect men to express sadness. They should remain stable in all situations based on social construction. Men are usually socialized to b stoic. However, men have contradicted the expectations since they also demonstrate emotions other than anger. They may depict sadness while at work. Besides, young boys cry contrary to the hope that they need to be strong. Crying is associated with women in society, and thus males displaying the same do not uphold the stereotypical masculinity. Society needs to ensure that there is an environment where all people can experience similar emotions.
How females confirm stereotypical femininity
Females usually express emotions more than men. Women depict discrete emotions such as fear, happiness, sadness, and disgust more than the male gender. Females are established to score higher when it comes to emotion recognition, empathy, and social sensitivity. It is common for women to express fear of certain issues or a given and be afraid of facing it as men would. They usually perceive some of the things beyond their capabilities (Muller & Wiener, p. 438). Women also tend to express emotions in terms of happiness. They reveal their happiness openly, and everyone can tell when a woman is happy about something. Besides, women also show their sad moments more than men would do. It is easy to identify a woman saddened by a particular situation or behaviour than how one would recognize the same behaviour with men. Generally, women are more emotional when compared to their male counterparts.
The next trait with women is that they cry a lot over something or a particular situation or sad moment. When women face some pain with anything, they end to show the impact through crying. Typically, women cry louder and even shed tears outwardly. For instance, women express their grief moment through crying as opposed to how men would do. The crying behavior is an affirmation of societal construction that women should cry when faced with a challenging situation. Besides, the crying expression among women is also prolonged compared to how men would if they were to cry over the same incidence. Consequently, women will, in most cases, complain to affirm their anger and their stereotypical femininity.
The societal construction of women is that they are kind. In most cases, women show the quality of being generous, friendly, and considerate. They have a significant concern to other individuals, and they do without expecting to receive any reward or praise. This is a key virtue among numerous cultures that women possess and practice. The act of kind among women is demonstrated where they are willing to help others when in need an do not expect in return for anything.
Besides kindness, women display nurturing character, especially by the fact that they become mothers. Nurturing requires protection and care for something or someone while in their growth process. For instance, women help bring up a child from a young age, even to become a full-grown individual. They take care of the child by feeding and attending to the baby for also essential requirements. Usually, the family setting is such that the mother figure in the household is always around the children. Nurturing character is also expressed in many places or organizations where women take the leadership role (Quindlen, Chapter 12). They help their followers grow as they nurture them through certain requirements or processes of the particular field.
How females contradict stereotypical femininity
The modern world has evolved to the extent that women have also taken up certain traits traditionally perceived as a male-dominated. For instance, women in the modern world have become more independent as they strive to pursue on their own. They have assumed employment opportunities, go up in the academic fields, and secured jobs to run their personal needs. It is common to find women pursuing life independently contrary to how society expected and constructed them to behave. They lead an independent entity, such as financial independence. This is a contradiction of the stereotypical femininity.
Society has been seeing women as home-oriented. However, modern women have challenged the perception as they have explored the world and even lived far from their family members (Veciana-suarez, 390). Since women have joined the employment sector and political arena, they find themselves more to the world than how they used to be home-oriented in the past.
Women have also contradicted the perception that they are more emotional than men. It is now common for some women not to reveal their anger or sad moment outwardly. They will tend to remain quiet over the situation even though it hurts them inwardly. Women have become stronger and do not express sadness easily. Besides, they may not express their disgust even when they do not like a particular behaviour or situation.
The next social construction among women is that they cry a lot. Certain women challenge the behaviour as they will not cry over a given situation. Some women may not cry when expressing their grief as it would be expected. This contradicts stereotypical femininity. Generally, although women cry a lot in certain situations, some do not cry when faced with a sad moment.
Conclusion
Males and females are socially constructed to possess certain behaviours that define their male or female genders. Specific attributes are perceived as belonging to one gender, while others to the opposite gender. Each gender manages to affirm their qualities, although there are situations and instances contrary to how society perceives them.
Works Cited:
Ackley, K. A. & Heinle, T. Perspectives on Contemporary Issues 3rd Edition. 2003.
Devor, A. “Gender behaviors and attitudes.”
Katz-Wise, Sabra L., Heather A. Priess, and Janet S. Hyde. “Gender-role attitudes and behavior across the transition to parenthood.” Developmental psychology 46.1 (2010): 18.
Muller, G. & Wiener, H. “The Short Prose Reader.” 9th Edition. 2000.
Quindlen, A. “Women are Just Better.”
Veciana-suarez, A. “Thank heaven for little boys.”