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Memo
My workshop partners were Alex Campbell, India Daniels and Stephen Walls. First of all,
they were very committed with the workshop. I read my paper at loud and they gave me
immediate feedback. They didnt lower my self-esteem by criticizing me, but gave me useful
and positive feedbacks. They told me that I should cover less topic but with more detail rather
than covering variety of things. They also asked me to put some narrative within parts of the
essay, which I decided to do. They told me that I should reorganize my essay so that it flows
better. They also complimented on few things I added in the essay. Overall it was a positive
workshop experience.

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Changhyun Song
Professor Laura Knudson
UWRT 1101-09
16 February, 2016
Trendy Gender Roles
As long ago as we could remember, women and men were separated. They each had
different roles, jobs and responsibility within the society. The system wasnt the same for
every civilization, but the general fact that women were treated inferior than men remained
the same. Or at least that was how gender was viewed within societies. It may have been due
to the conceptualization that women were viewed as house wives or mothers, or it may have
been just because they are mothers. Since men are generally built biologically stronger than
women, this culture was formed and passed down to future generations. Many things have
changed through a long period of time. Women and men are now treated more equally. When
referring to equally I am talking about their roles and recognition in society. However there
isnt anything perfect. There are many issues in the world regarding inequality between men
and women, which is why there are movements like feminism. However, I believe that
cultural literacy also follows a trend. People probably could not have imagined things like
feminism movements in the past, or realize that it is not an obvious thing that men are treated
superiorly than women. Gender roles are trendy, as time pass, and as people formulate
different ideals it changes.
Common typical gender roles include women stay home and look after the children.
Men go to work and would be responsible for the financial duties. Culturally, cleaning,
infantry and housework were seen as responsibilities of women. However nowadays, men
that are both successful in their career and in house duties are more popular; mostly referring
to cooking. For instance, in Korea sexy men that cook are popular. Due to that there are a

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lots of programs that involves celebrities cooking and different chefs showing various
cooking methods. Which automatically creates many men that wants to learn how to cook so
that they could be seen more attractively. Culturally Asian men did not cook it was the job of
a women. Now even if it is a method to impress the opposite sex, people have changed.
Another important role of women were raising their children. However, there are also many
popular programs in Asia, which films everyday life of celebrities after they get married. In
this program the husbands let their wives to rest for 2 days every week, and they look after
the children. Looking at how programs like these that are popular you could see how much
people have changed. We seem to be getting more open minded to things like this as more
time passes.
Just looking back 15 years of my life, how my family looked during my childhood is
so much more different than what modern families does. My mother and father both had jobs.
I was looked after by a nanny ever since the age my mother thought it was okay for me to be
without her. Unlike the general Men are in charge of finance and women are in charge of
the household, my father willingly handed over all the financial responsibilities to my
mother. It wasnt because my mother was making more money than my father but just
because she was more organized and had always been saving up. However, my father was
still the head of the household. Even though my father was the head of the household, my
mom technically took on more roles in the family. Just by looking at my family, you can tell
that my parents were not trapped in the typical gender roles. However, they werent always
broken away from typical gender roles. My dad still remained as the head of the house and
my mother did most of the house work. Even though in some ways they werent trapped by
society but at the same time they were still revolving around it.
Nowadays, there are no fixed roles for an individual. In fact, things are the
opposite ways around. We have broken away from the fixated idea of how an individual of

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their perceived sex should behave in a way the society has developed. We have working
moms and fathers that stay home and do house work. There are so many women that push
back their emotional feelings for their career. Women now tend to get married a considerable
time later than before. They prefer to pursue their career for a longer time before theyre
occupied with parenthood. It is not a sin for being a parent but it seems like it is in the current
workforce. Teenage moms for example, most of them drop out of school and focus on
parenting which potentially eliminates opportunity for further education.
Society has also classified jobs into feminist jobs and masculine jobs. Professions
such as nurses, pharmacists which gives you an image of female when you think about it, and
jobs like engineers and doctors which creates an masculine image. We think of the jobs this
way because we see more prominent numbers of female working in a particular career and
men in another. Men tend to occupy more labor related jobs, which require more physical
energy and involves getting dirtier. An example would be an auto repair shop, youre most
likely to see more male employees than female employees and almost at all times it is males
who work to physically fix the car. I am not saying that women dont work as mechanical
engineers but that there is an image engraved in out brain telling us which gender pops up
first when thinking about it. It is funny how every place in society things are separated by
gender. I think this is sort of a prejudice or advertisement of society. Since we see majority of
jobs are done by men, such as engineering and doctors we automatically think of a male
when we hear the word doctor.
Furthermore, who and when was the concept for girls and for guys made? Some
examples are how we perceive male and female clothing. How men shouldnt wear skirts,
only women should carry purses, men dont wear makeup, and etc. In present days where
people dont develop their identity from what other people think, they do whatever they want.
They wear whatever clothes that they seem fit to describe who they are. There are many

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genders, male, female, gays and even transgender. They just act accordingly to who they
think they are, despite what most other people think about them. In modern day society, we
respect each and every individual but there are still many people who think it is wrong to not
act like ones perceived sex. It has been like this since ancient times. Even if we look into
Christianity, homosexuals were not accepted. People were treated as outcast if they were
homosexual.
In the article When no gender fits: A quest to be seen as just a person the author
says that Kelsey, a teenage student thinks she does not belong to any gender group. If she
belongs to any gender group it would be Non-binary. But the concept of non-binary gender
isnt well known to people because most people never think deeply enough for them to
realize to that answer. Non-binary refers to not belonging in either the male or female gender.
She just wants to be Kelsey, however, it is weird to think that way in society, and especially
more in the older generations. However, there are many people like Kelsey in the world that
has questions about who they are and they dont think they should abide by the societal
norms set by society. It is weird how we separate ourselves even though we are all same..
As I was drowning deeper into my thoughts, I was enlightened by a question that
popped up. Why is a child given his fathers surname instead of the mothers? and also why
do women adopt their husbands last name after marriage? I have had these questions time to
time growing up. It just felt it was natural for the children to have their fathers last name as
their last name. It was a concept I never questioned. It was just engraved in my mind that a
child inherits their fathers surname. Ive never thought about it in a womens point of view.
Women carry the baby for 9 months before giving birth, also goes through the pain and
inconvenience that follows. It seems it is more reasonable for the child to inherit the mothers
last name. I feel like every parents would want their children to have their last name, which
will then be passed down to the future generations. It is said that the tradition of inheriting the

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fathers last name was created initially as a way of proving the childs paternity. This sounds
very sexist and disrespectful towards women, since it is passively referring that women are
likely to bear another mans child? And convince their husband by agreeing to give the child
his last names? Why didnt people think about it the other way around? It is not womens
fault that they give birth to children, it is how they were created. I heard that people now give
both parents last names to their children so it is more equal. It is also the same for how
women adopt their spouses last name after marriage. This is very questionable, women
should not be expected to have their last names changed after the husbands. They were born
with their name and they should have the right to keep it. I hear people tend to just keep their
maiden names even after marriage.
I think even gender roles follow a certain trend, just like fashion. At different times,
different items are popular depending on what people idealize then. For example, trench coat
was initially developed during the First World War as an alternative to heavy surge
greatcoats. It was worn by fairy high up military personnel. However, since few years ago,
they are becoming very popular in the fashion industry. I think this is due to what people
idealize; people think that being in the military is very attractive so, they wear clothing that
represents it. It seems to be a type of self satisfaction. That is why regardless of gender,
people like to wear similar things that are trendy.
In Conclusion, time seems to craft society. As time passed people started thinking
deeply and differently about who they are and raised questions about ideas passed down
through traditions and cultures. Gender roles may not disappear but it will change, like how
people think differently about gender roles than in the past. People are willing to share
responsibilities and break away from societal norms. People should sometimes be prejudice
towards norms of society.

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Works Cited
Heese, Monica. When no gender fits: A quest to be seen as just a person. The Washington
Post., 20 Sept. 2014. Web. 4 Feb 2016.