Gender and Sexuality
There exist various aspects of how I experience gender that I see to be shaped by our culture. I have experienced how to work, and responsibilities are shared based on gender in our society. This is a culture that has been in existence for several years. It natural for a woman to perform kitchen chores but very unnatural for a man to do the same. This experience profoundly resonates with Alice Eagly and Vadantam’s conversation, where they suggested how men are reluctant to take specific jobs because they feel they are meant for women. A typical example is nursing. Initially, many believed that nursing was for Men. After Florence Nightingale, many were convinced that indeed nursing was not for men. I think this is the time that societies need to rethink their cultural beliefs regarding gender and gender roles.
Gender and gender beliefs tend to differ from one country to another. They vary depending on the social culture and beliefs. In Cameroon, for example, just as Mukhopadhyay et al. (2020) wrote, women will perform tedious chore in the farm because there is a prevailing belief that they have a relatively strong forehead than men. This is contrary to what is experienced in the United States, whereby men are the ones who perform the heavy duties I almost every sector. In the United States culture, lighter roles are associated with women, and no man will dare touch it.
Depending on the culture of various societies across the globe, there exist distinctive parallels and similarities in how cultures view gender and gender roles—some similarities between the United States perception of gender and other countries around the globe. Across cultures and religions, the United States includes strength and power have been the defining characteristics of masculinity (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2020). The prevailing cultures consider women to be weak, a trait that is experienced globally.
References
Mukhopadhyay, C. C., Blumenfield, T., Harper, S., & Gondak, A. (2017). Gender and Sexuality.