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Sean Lee

Professor Beadle

ENGL 114A

May 7, 2017

Gender Roles Within the World Today

Gender roles are played so often in the world today, but seem to have expectations as

well. Along with gender expectation, it seems that the unequal treatment of gender correlate

together. Based on some research, I had found some visual texts that support my claim of gender

roles having an expectation. For my visual texts, I had used two movies, Cinderella and Tomb

Raider, and one Verizon Wireless commercial. Two of the three visual texts show how society

has an expectation of gender and the other visual text goes against that expectation. Most of the

visual text implicate the gender expectation that society has. Everyone in the world has a gender

role that they feel they must exceed.

There is an expectation that genders face everyday in life. In the movie, Cinderella, it

was shown a gender role from Cinderella, herself, performing a certain task. She was doing

simple stereotypical housework such as cleaning and cooking for her so called family. These

typical tasks seem to be an expectation of a gender because it is a task that was previously done

by the female gender. It was both immorally and socially wrong for her to do these chores, but

she was taken under her last family members, so it a sense, it does make sense that she had to

take the assignments. However, the chores that she is working does not have to be so

stereotypical as cleaning and cooking. I do not understand why they had to make it resolve to

gender because of the main character being a female. It is incomprehensible that they would

make her perform a basic female task. It would have been more fair if they made her do,
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maybe, some manly chores. Such as, what is considered manly, like maybe hunting the food

necessary for the family, cleaning up after possible farm animals, etc. It may make sense that the

time period of the movie originally being taken in the past. However, would it not have been fair

to show that gender does not have to be part of a role in society? Cinderella was a great visual

text that showed both a gender expectation and unequal treatment from the tasks performed by

Cinderella.

From another visual text, there is a gender expectation that the society has on people. In a

Verizon Wireless commercial, it shows a little girl throughout her life being told what not to do.

At first, this visual text did not seem to have anything with gender until towards the end of the

video. In the end, there was a scene where the girl was working on a project with a power tool. It

must have seemed dangerous so her dad told her to give the tool to her brother. That scene shows

how society has a sense that females are not capable of operating a power tool. It seems to show

that the father does not expect her daughter to be able to operate the tool just because she is a

girl. Along with the assumption that only males can work with power tools, this correlates with

gender inequality. It is not fair to judges ones performance based on gender. This visual text

helped showed that society judges an ability just based on gender.

In the book, Gender, Masculinities and Lifelong Learning edited by Marion Bowl, Robert

Tobias, Jennifer Leahy, Graeme Ferguson, and Jeffrey Gage, had stated that, not only women,

but men also are expected to live and act in a way in society. The authors main idea stated some

men do go through hardship during their lifetime. An example of boys going through hardship

was exemplified when they are learning in becoming men, or father-like figures in the future.

With this book, it was visible that both genders face an expectation and that meeting it may seem

difficult for some.

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One example of gender assumption and gender inequality in the world today can be seen

in the work force. The assumption is also an inequality to the gender roles. In the book, Doing

Justice, Doing Gender: Women in Legal and Criminal Justice Occupations, by Susan Ehrlich

Martin and Nancy C. Jurik, it helps support the idea of the gender roles. One the gender

expectation aspect, society assumes that men are better workers than females in the work force.

However, that is not true because it has been stated that females have been doing as well as men,

maybe even better. For example, the field that the authors mentioned that females excel in law,

policing, and corrections jobs. To show that females were efficient enough to work in these

environments, the authors mentioned examples of outstanding works, such as a historic event of

women being able to become policewomen. Not only were historic moments mentioned by the

authors, but they also bring up demographics on how women in these work environments have

been beginning to grow. The book mentions a great meaning of how gender should not be

assumed or be mistreated in the work force because any gender can do just as well as each other,

it all depends on the skill of the person.

The articles from my research stated that gender inequality still occurs in todays society.

Society compares and treats them unequally by stating that one gender is considered more

exceptional than the other. One difference that the article, Introduction for Students, by Rachel

Groner and John OHara, from the book, Composing Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader,

mentioned there was a difference in pay the genders where the men receive more than the

females. It is still surprising that to this day there are differences in pay even though the people

may be working the same position. Like stated with the previous evidence, since any gender is

capable of meeting the expectation of work skills, the difference in pay. It is clear that women

can do just as well, even better, than the me. With that, another difference the article talks about
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was society assuming one gender is capable of a task while the other is not capable. It was

specifically mentioned that genders are judged for inadequate performance, or pressured to

something in order to satisfy an exception. (Groner & OHara 4). Gender inequality should not

exist to this day, based on what the authors have written.

From another article, Night to his Day: The Social Construction of Gender, by Judith

Lorber, it states that the society has an exception for each of the genders. One experience is that

genders are expected to participate in a role that is not necessary, such as dressing to impress the

other gender. The quote, A sex category becomes gender status through naming, dress, and use

of other markers. (Lorber 20), states that once a sex is categorized, the gender is as well and

there will be an expectation to fill within that category, such as dress. Dressing has to be one of

the common expectations people try to meet because they may have received that thought

growing up. However, it should not really have to matter because people should be able to dress

as they please without the necessity of trying to impress others. To this day, it does seem more

clear that people do dress as they please because society is slowly beginning to accept the ways

others dress.

The visual texts that I researched all help support my claim of how gender expectations

are excessive. Society seems to expect so little from the female gender, especially, because it has

a thought that they are not capable of anything just as men are. To support my visual texts, the

two books have stated that though men face hardship, it is not as bad as for the women. Another

one says that women are capable of exceed the expectations and can even do better than men at a

task. Along with the books as support, the articles state that the pay in the work force is different,

but I have claimed that they deserve just as much as men. From all these sources, I believe being

educated about gender is important because people are all the same in the inside and have the
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same capabilities. People should not be divided within our society just because of the difference

in gender.
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Work Cited

- Cinderella. Disney, 2012

- VerizonWireless. Verizon Commercial 2014 | Inspire Her Mind | Verizon
Wireless. YouTube. YouTube, 02 June 2014. Web. 03 Apr. 2017
- Bowl, Marion. Gender, Masculinities and Lifelong Learning. London: Routledge,
2012. Print
- Martin, Susan Ehrlich, and Jurik, Nancy C. Doing Justice, Doing Gender.
London: SAGE, 2006. Print
- Groner, Rachel and OHara, John F. Introduction for Students Composing
Gender: A
Bedford Spotlight Reader. Groner, Rachel and OHara, John F. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins. 2014. Print.
- Lorber, Judith. Night to his Day: The Social Construction of Gender
Composing
Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. Groner, Rachel and OHara, John F. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins. 2014. Print.