Rationale

The aim of my assignment was to show a perspective of how gender roles are
seen today. I used three different sources, a blog, an article and a web page. The article
(Gender Roles and Society) help me to understand the meaning of genders in general.
The blog, gave me the perspective of an open-minded person on the topic and the web
page (What are gender roles and stereotypes?) talks about today stereotypes in society.
Because my assignment was about the perspective of the people, I decided to write a
blog. Blogs are effective because they represent the opinion of one person about a topic
and focus to transmit that message to a community, and in this case in a informal
register whit a informative tone. In my blog, I pretend to be in one study made at
Stanford University about genders showed in the Social Norm and Gendered
Expectations. My target audience cares about gender stereotypes. This is why I write
about how we see them today. Also, I notice how a big part of gender stereotypes are
still present, and how they, despite political and feminist moves against those ideas, are
still above non traditional ideas.

Word count: 199

Gender Roles?
Today I went to a meeting at Stanford University. This meeting had the aim to
see which, a male or female voice on a computer taught a subject to a student better, and
which do they prefer. The two subjects were love and relationships and physics.
Even though they taught the same way, and taught the same subjects, students picked
the female voice for teaching love and relationships and the male voice for physics.
The students argued that they were not biased by gender stereotypes; however, the
results show the gender expectations of gender bias. So, what does this mean? That we
still live in a traditional way according to gender roles? That we think we have achieved
complete equality? Or is just hypocrisy?

First, the study showed that our way to choose a gender for a person who is
going to teach us something is still biased by stereotypes, but that doesnt mean we
applied that to everything. Secondly, we are no longer living in a traditional way. We
are now more concern on distinguishing what stereotypes exist and how to change
them. For example, according to hyper-femininity and masculinity ideas, the male
should be tough and show no emotions, and the female should be naive, weak and
emotional. Nowadays, they are just part of the big blanket of lies on which society is
covered. The feminist movements are a big part of the spread of nontraditional gender
roles ideas. Despite the fact that the traditional of thinking of how genders should be is
dominant around the world, there are alternative studies that established the opposite.
Sociologists studies said that traditional gender patterns are learned, so as well, they
can be unlearned which means that will mean that gender is not necessarily attached to
the biological sex. Thirdly, I can assure that we still way too far from equality, but today
thoughts of how gender roles should be are changing. Gender roles are defined by the
beliefs of a society on what differences should a sex have, but if the political and
feminist movements keep fighting against the big blanket, we could change new
generations minds.
Dont let stereotypes defined who you are, no matter your sex or sexual
attractions, people have the right to choose about their lives. We cant change old
generations minds, focus on the future, on new born kids. Dont stop fighting.

Word count: 399

References

Blackstone. A (2003) Gender Roles and Society in Human Ecology: An

Encyclopedia of Children, Families, Communities, and Environments.
Heddleston. K (2015, March 26) Social Norms and Gendered Expectations
[Web Blog] Retrieved from: https://kateheddleston.com/blog/social-norms-and-
gendered-expectations
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (n.d) What are gender roles and
stereotypes: Sexual Orientation and Gender. Retrieved from:
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-
gender-identity/what-are-gender-roles-and-stereotypes