Our discussion in class Friday had me thinking about the double standards that still live on in society today. The commonly known double standard of a man who flirts with many women being a "lady's man" while a woman who reciprocates the same behavior being "sexually promiscuous," is quite debasing for women and very excusable for men. On the flip side, the double standard of a man who is unemployed or a stay-at-home dad being a "bum" as opposed to an unemployed or stay-at-home mom being "suitable" certainly doesn't do justice to a man.
Though such double standards are unfair to one or both sexes, they are still rather common today. I always thought double standards derived from past events that led people to view men and women as such. The past behaviors of men and women under certain circumstances must have produced the double standards. My question, however, is why double standards still exist even today? Perhaps certain double standards are true in very specific cases nowadays, allowing said double standard to linger on?
-Chloe Martianou
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I think it has to do with the way people perceive gender roles to be. The traditional role of a man is to go to work, so if he doesn't he is not fulfilling his job and thus being lazy. While a woman's traditional role is to be at home, so if that's what she does there is no problem. Women for many years were expected to be very proper and polite. There was a strict social code for how she should behave, which included not flirting with boys. This social code was not placed on boys so they began acting differently. Although we have changed our social standards, the old ones have not been entirely erased.
ReplyDelete~Becca
I think that the explanation for why double standards still exist is simply our adherence to tradition. Even though it's becoming increasingly common to have a woman who works or a man who is a homemaker, many people still cling to the idea of the 1950's Leave-it-to-Beaver family. In the end, the idea of the "model family" may never be removed from our society, but most likely it will continue to become less prevalent in our country.
ReplyDelete-Bryce Cody
I think we recognize that the traditional gender roles should be altered to become more modern, and that society should accommodate the nontraditional roles that have cropped up over time. But how is the question. The way people think changes so slowly; it took society centuries to give women rights in 1920 and took decades for society merely to loosen their firm grip slightly on the Leave-it-to-Beaver ideal. Politics has gotten us this far, where it's legal for women to vote and it's legal for women to own property. But legislation's power has its limits; bills can't force people to think differently. I think the only way the gender roles have become less rigid over time is that individuals have stood up and decided to be mavericks and choose a nontraditional field to study and broke social codes. But the process is so slow and I can't think of any way to speed it up. People really can prove to be afraid of change.
ReplyDelete-- tori