Ejbara 1

Jiana Ejbara

Professor Ditch

English 115

6 December 2017

Struggles of Women

Many people do not recognize just how influential gender is in everyday society.

Whether it is noticed or not gender affects everybody's everyday lives. Surprisingly enough,

many people do not understand the difference between sex and gender. Many confuse the two

and believe that they are the same concept when in reality they are quite different. Your sex is

what someone is born with while gender is what someone chooses to identify themselves as.

Meaning that the sex that someone is born with may not be who that person ends up choosing to

be in the future. Through personal experience I have realized that in certain spaces I may act one

way and in another space I may portray a different gender performance depending on if that

space calls for a masculine or feminine gender role. Being a female I am expected to be

submissive and sensitive while males are expected to be dominant and must not show their

feelings to society, for that is frowned upon. Having these expectations have put an unexpected

toll on today's society of how we view ourselves and our peers. In addition, it seems as if women

have been given the disadvantage and portrayed as the inferior gender. Being a man seems to

provide more benefits and more freedom than what a women would receive. Gender roles are

impacting women the most because of the different expectations women are held to, what

women are exposed to at a young age, and how women are judged based on looks.
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Sex can play quite a big part in our everyday lives whether it is life at home or life at

work, especially with being a women. Gender can even affect how people treat us on a day to

day bases. We portray women as they must take care of the children, in addition to taking care of

the home. Furthermore, they are also expected to balance a job along with balancing a clean

home and their children. Judith Lorder author of Night to His Day: The Social Construction of

Gender gives an example of this by stating In countries that discourage gender discrimination

many major roles are still gendered; women still do most of the domestic labor and child rearing,

even while doing full-time paid work; women and men are segregated on the job and each does

work considered appropriate; womens work is usually paid less than mens work (30).

Women are expected to do more than men would have to do and yet they are still paid less than

men purely because of their gender. They are paid less even when the same task is being

performed by the opposite gender. Lorder continues her argument by bringing up that Men

dominate the positions of authority and leadership in government, the military, and the law;

cultural productions, religions, and sports reflect mens interests (30). Women are not as

represented as much as men are represented in the workplace. This may discourage young

females from going for an opportunity that they feel deserving of but feel they are not capable of

it due to gender. I have personally felt this in my high school when it came to sports. All of the

male supports were supported much more than any of the female sports that we had. It seemed

that male supports teams were given so much more support even if we had a women's team in

the same sport. I felt that this discouraged me a little bit because I knew that no matter what male

sports were going to dominate my school.

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We learn about gender roles at such a young age and we do not even realize it until we

are older that we have these expectations for each gender. We are not necessarily exposed to it

on purpose but rather thru our day to day lives. Aaron Devor, author of Becoming Members of

Society: The Social Meanings of Gender provides evidences of this by stating Children begin

to settle into a gender identity between the ages of eighteen months and two years. By the age of

two, children usually understand that they are members of a gender grouping and can correctly

identify other members of their gender. By age 3 they have a fairly firm understanding and

consistent concept of gender (35). Even by such a young age we are already exposed to what

our genders are supposed to perform like in today's world. We must do and act the way our

gender is recognized to act in todays society. Devor also explains that Children five to seven

years old understand gender as a function of role rather than as a function of anatomy (37).

Young children are taught that you must perform certain roles according to their gender.

However, if I am in a group project and my group members are not doing the work and are

slacking off, then I being a female will become the dominant one and make sure that everyone

does their part for the project. This would mean that if there were any men in my group that they

would be performing a feminine act because they would be submissive to me. However, not all

females may feel comfortable showing their dominant side. This can have damaging affects on

young children, especially young girls, because they may not want to perform to that gender role.

They may be even looked at as the odd one out because of it. For example, women are looked at

as being submissive and sensitive while men are looked at as being dominant and powerful. We

view men as being strong and demanding while we view women as being frail and weak. When

in reality men and women can be both depending on what kind of space they are in.
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Based on the gender that we are born with we are expected to look and act a certain way

to match society's expectations of that gender. Ruth Hubbard author of Rethinking Womens

Biology provides examples of this by explaining that The impression that women are shorter

than men is enhanced by our social convention that when women and men pair off, it is

considered preferable for the man to be taller than the women (Hubbard 46). Women are

expected to be smaller than men in both height and weight wise. It is not seen as normal if in a

relationship the women is either taller than or bigger than the man. This has caused many

problems in society because women feel that they are held to a certain standard. If women feel

that they can not reach this society norm they may feel as if their is something wrong with them

and take destructive action to fix the problem. Hubbard mentions this by saying At present, U.S.

women are obsessed by concerns about their weight to the point where girls and young women

deliberately eat less than they need for healthy growth and development (Hubbard 49). The

norms that women have can possibly have traumatic effects on them mentally, physically, and

emotionally as well. This can result in many health issues that can have lifelong effects on

women and their loved ones. I too have had to deal with the negative effects of body image.

Whether I am going to the gym or even going shopping I would get catcalled or stared by men. I

would go to the gym and go to the weight and realize that I was sometimes the only women in

that section which would cause men to want to stare me. Men would stare when I simply just

wanted to work out and lift weights. Things like this give a huge disadvantage to women.

In conclusion, women have always been viewed as differently than men, whether it be

based off of looks or talent, women are not provided with the same opportunities as men. Men

have always been viewed as the more powerful and dominate gender regardless of what any
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woman has done. It is important to keep this topic alive because for years and years it has been

talked about and nothing has changed. In addition it is making it is providing a terrible example

to young women that being a woman is looked at as a negative thing in today's society when it

should rather be getting celebrated and embraced. We should encourage young women to be

proud of who they are and always motivate them to know that anything a man can do they can do

as well. Teaching children from a young age that whatever your gender is should not make you

treat the other differently, and rather be open minded to all things. Gender has and always will be

a huge part of who we are in today's society, however we should never allow one gender to feel

superior to the other. Regardless of what gender someone identifies as they are allowed to

perform a different gender role based off of what space they are in.
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Work Cited

Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender. Composing

Gender, 2014, pp. 35-45.

Hubbard, Ruth. Rethinking Womens Biology Composing Gender, 2014, pp. 1-19.

Lorder, Judith. Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Composing Gender,

2014, pp. 19-34.