GENDER ROLES WITHIN MARRIAGE

A gender role refers to a set of norms that is designed for a specific sex that is required to be socially acceptable in their culture (Wikipedia 2011). With gender roles, there is a certain social and behavioral model that is considered appropriate. Lets look at gender roles in marriage as an example. Marriage is a legal unification between a man and a woman who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners. There are three different types of marriages: Mixed type, Egalitarian type, and Traditional type.

The mixed type of marriage is when the wife’s work is less absorbing than the husbands. Therefore, she takes on more of the household tasks and looks after the children. In the egalitarian type household, both husband and wife has equally absorbing work. The household tasks and looking after the children are shared equally. In a traditional type home, the husband only works and his wife runs the home. The traditional gender role for a husband is being the breadwinner. As for the wife, her role is to be a stay at home mother, aka caregiver.

Gender roles are a quick way to differentiate between the sexes. When we run across a woman who is the breadwinner of the house and the man is the caregiver, we become stereotypical. Is it looked down upon if a male is a stay at home dad? Is a woman being the breadwinner abnormal or could it be the way we are raised?

I was raised in a home with parents of traditional gender roles. My mother was a stay at home mom and my dad was the breadwinner. My grandparents and great grandparents followed the same outline. Being raised in such roles, I can’t help but feel that that is the normal way to separate gender roles within marriage. But, I was also raised to be educated and financially independent because I am a woman. I was taught that women are more vulnerable in the fact that they let the male take on the breadwinner position while they become stay at home mothers. Young married women generally put their husbands through school before themselves. My mother did that and she ended up having kids during those years, so she never was able to continue her education.

Although egalitarian marriage may not be the norm in the United States, there is a significant push in that direction. In this day and age, women are becoming more educated. Therefore, women are getting higher paid job opportunities. With the increase in women’s educational level, it is providing independence and desire to break free of the traditional marriage roles.

Work Cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_roles

Hawke, Lucy A. (2008) "Gender Roles within American Marriage: Are They Really Changing?,"ESSAI: Vol. 5, Article 23.

Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol5/iss1/23