How Do Gender Roles Affect Families

Google defines gender roles as “a set of societal norms dictating what types of behaviours are generally considered acceptable, appropriate or desirable for a person based on their actual or perceived sex” (Google, 2015). What this means is that gender roles were created to describe how the majority of society believe a specific sex should act. Just because someone believes you should act a specific way does not mean you need to base your life around it. When talking about gender roles and their influences on family life people tend to believe that it either has a huge impact on their lives and within their household or it does not faze them at all. What is a family? Today the definition of family has many different meanings; it can be defined as a nuclear family, a blended family and many more. A family is generally known as the group of people within one specific household including a mom, dad, and siblings. …show more content…
Each person within a specific family has their ideal roles that they play out on a daily basis. Two of the most common gender roles people hear about are how men should be the breadwinners of the family meanwhile women are suited to stay at home and take care of the children and the household. Gender roles have impacted family life in a tremendous way and it can be seen as either positive or negative according to who is talking about it. When looking into gender roles you can find them anywhere, some of them are the found within the workplace, society, and the media. These three aspects show some of the biggest gender role stereotypes to date. Do you want to be put into a box and be told what to do, or do you want to live your life the way you wish? People can choose to step into line and follow societal norms or they can step outside of the box that was created for them and fight to have their own lives. At one point people did step outside of the box created for them, mainly women. When you look at women and gender roles they are usually perceived as the sex that stays home, cleans the household, and looks after the children. Before World War ll these gender norms were normal. The women did stay home and took care of the cleaning and the children, that is, until the war began. When the men were sent out to become soldiers in the war society went into what is known as the great depression. During this time women fought for their right to work and earn breadwinner wages to help keep their family afloat while their husbands and fathers were gone fighting in the war. This is how women came to be in the workplace. There have been many changes when it comes to families and the workforce such as, “rising numbers of dual career couples and working mothers with young children, have increased the likelihood that both male and female employees have substantial household obligations as well as major work responsibilities” (Cinamon & Rich, 2002). What this means is that throughout the years more women are found within the workplace instead of just men leaving women to become breadwinners as well. This also shows that women in the workforce have more responsibilities because gender roles still state that even though women are now working full-time they are still the ones responsible for the care of their children. Now, women are seen everywhere within the workplace some are even running some of the biggest companies known to date. Even though women are within the workforce there are still many gender roles that are displayed. For example, when walking into a business the first thing you usually see is a woman sitting at a desk out front doing paper work or answering phones for the company. These women are secretaries, and if you think about it you rarely see a man doing this job. This is a form of a gender role stereotype because it is said that women interact with people better. This is not necessarily a bad quality to have in one’s self but it brings back the argument that people are placed into a box based