Gender roles are defined to be the roles or behaviors considered appropriate for a particular gender. They are defined by cultural and societal norms. However how did they come to be? And what relevance do they hold in the present-day world?
Gender roles as we know it today originally gained significance around the time of the Victorian era. Men were expected to lead families and take care of public responsibilities within the society. While women were left to handle private responsibilities that involved caring for the family. This came to be the norm as more and more people would follow this way of living, and those who went against this norm were seen in a negative light. However, this leads to the question, is this all that has to do with the origin of gender roles? Has it always simply been a society norm that people made up?
Science, a field that already seems to govern almost all aspects of our lives, once again comes in to play here. On studying the biology of the male and female genders, it was found that there is a difference in physical characteristics as well as the hormones present in their bodies. Males have high levels of testosterone while females have a higher level of estrogen. These differences in the hormones result in the brains of individuals developing differently depending on their genders. Additionally, it was seen that high levels of oxytocin appear to correlate with their tendency to be nurturing while high levels of testosterone in males correlated with aggressive behavior in men.
This now leads us to wonder, are the social and scientific roots of gender roles mutually exclusive in creating today’s conception of gender roles, has the scientific evidence led the societal based theory to be rendered irrelevant?
The answer it seems is that both these causes have combined to result in the present-day gender roles being the way they are (referenced from a research article by Daniel Nyarko Ayisi and Toth Krisztina on gender roles and gender differences and an overview of it’s social and biological theories.
Through the research it was concluded that biology was able to define and identify gender on the birth of an individual. But it was society and upbringing that went on to shape them according to the expectations of gender roles. Since biological differences appear to be in favor of the gender roles as defined, would it be possible to conclude that the Victorian norms for genders that were once followed are in fact relevant and should hold true even today?
While this might have been true in primitive times where the male’s physical strength and aggression helped them in their roles as hunter gatherers, making them the ‘provider’ and ‘head of the family’. In today’s world such tasks no longer exist, and one doesn’t need to hunt and gather to provide. Both genders are almost equally capable of pursuing most jobs we have today. As emotionally intelligent beings, humans have the ability to look past their primitive instincts. And so even men the ability to care and nurture even if it isn’t inbuilt into their biology.
To conclude, gender roles originated not just through societal norms but have roots in the biology of our being. And while social and biological causes worked together to create this idea of “gender roles” there is no longer a need to follow it as it holds very little relevance to the people of the present.
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