Walmart Gender Roles

The society establishes certain norms that are expected to be followed by the gendered people residing in that society. These norms put them in their specific gender roles, which become the foundation of their identity. For example, since centuries, the belief that men are powerful and controlling, whereas women are vulnerable and dependent is prevailed all around the world. These gender roles ultimately regulate their behaviour, as this is how they can follow the norms to live ideally in the society. In other words, human behaviour varies across genders, and this is shaped up by what the society and the culture they are residing in expects of them. To gain a detailed insight of the phenomena of gendered behaviour, I observed the gender role of the female population in Wal-Mart. I went there to shop with my mother, and I used this opportunity to have a glance at how men and women usually behave in a supercenter. The first thing that took my attention is that women were more as employees than men in the store. I further noticed that the women population is mostly gathered in the fashion department and the grocery department, whereas most men were in electronics area. Furthermore, I observed that among the couples or families, the women were in charge of what groceries to buy and so on, whereas men were given the responsibility to push the shopping cart and/or look after kids. When few of the men took anything in the cart as per their wish, some of them looked concerned at their wives and anticipated their reactions. I also saw two men talking to their wives on phone while buying groceries. As I had spent more time in there, I saw a good number of men employees pushing or pulling pallets, which tells me that perhaps the employees at the backside of the store are men. I had further seen that most women have more products in their carts then men have. As I walked around the cash registers, I saw a very distinct difference. Majority of men are responsible to load the shopping carts with the bags filled with groceries after those have been scanned, and then push it toward the exit, when they came with their family, whereas women unloaded things from the cart at the beginning. Also, I had seen that most men are not conscious about bagging the groceries separately, whereas most women are. The things I observed enforces a number of pre-existing notions in the society. The dynamics between a husband and a wife is seen, where the women are the homemaker and the in-charge of their house, and the men are dependent on them. The wives control the activities of their husbands and their children, which seems quite apart from the typical patriarchal ideas, but this act of controlling is solely because of their role of a homemaker. This is seen when they are seen deciding which groceries to buy, or when men are concerned about their reactions if they themselves buy something on their own. The observation that I found the most interesting is of women being the majority employees at the front of the store. I wondered what accounts for this, and interestingly, this again reminded me of the entire idea in the society that women are supposedly the nurturers. Therefore, they are naturally capable to take care of things and people, and perhaps this led to the store hiring mostly women than men. However, this does not deny the fact that men are also employed there. As I also work there, I have noticed several times that almost all of the employees at the backside of the store are men. This suggests yet another already-existing notion in the society of men …show more content…
My experience of observing behaviour at public space does establish some significant distinctions between men and women, such as women as the homemaker and men dependent on them at home, women being conscious about their appearance, and men caring more about their leisure. However, it is hard to generalize their behaviour just by observing a group in a supercenter at a certain time. There can be some behaviour that do not favour the societal ideas about men and women in society, and thus it can be said that there is always an individual