Gender Roles in the United States

Gender roles are incredibly strong throughout the world, whether it is a highly developed and altruistic first world country or a third world country on the road to development, or about to embark on a journey of growth and development in each of its dimensions, It is clear that although gender segregation has been disintegrated in countless places to a remarkable level and in other areas or geographical regions still lacks significant work, gender roles and stereotypes remain in our culture and affect us either to a greater or lesser extent, so it is necessary and important to give a look and analysis of these when it comes to cultures and countries. In this post we will unwrap a little of what are contemporary gender stereotypes in the United States through 3 questions and in a fourth one we will contrast the American situation with the Colombian one from the experience of the authors of this blog. 

Question Number 1: What do these gender stereotypes suggest?

As everywhere in the world, gender stereotypes maintain a fairly solid base of what corresponds to and should be identified by both women and men, which in a fairly short and concise summary is that order where the woman is in charge of household responsibilities, should be obedient, delicate and weak, while the man should be in charge of financial responsibilities and should be strong in front of those around him and indifferent to the expression of his feelings. 

Question Number 2: What is the current status of gender stereotypes in the United States? 

In the article "The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves", written by Tanja Hentschel, Madeline E. Heilman and Claudia V. on the website "Frontiers in psychology" they say: "It is unclear to what extent there has been a real change in social roles. On the one hand, there are more women in the workforce than ever before. In 1967, 36% of U.S. married-couple households consisted of a male provider working outside the home and a female caregiver working inside the home, but now only 19% of U.S. households agree with this split (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). In addition, women are increasingly pursuing traditionally male careers, and there are more women in roles of power and authority. For example, women now hold nearly 40% of managerial positions in the United States (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). In addition, more men are taking on the primary family caregiving role (Ladge et al., 2015 ). Although families in which only the mother works remain rare (5% in 2016 compared with 2% in 1970), the average number of hours fathers spent caring for children per week increased from 2.5 to 8 h over the past 40 years (Pew Research Center , 2018). In addition, most fathers perceive fatherhood as extremely important to their identity (Pew Research Center, 2018)." Giving us to understand that although to a greater extent there has been significant change, the roots of gender stereotypes remains embedded in society and is in the process of changing this.  

Question Number 3: Is there still some kind of segregation between the male and female genders as a result of stereotypes in the United States?

Again, in the aforementioned article "The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves", written by Tanja Hentschel, Madeline E. Heilman and Claudia V. on the "Frontiers in Psychology" website, we are told that: "Role segregation, although somewhat diminished, has by no means been eliminated. Despite their growing numbers in the workforce, women are still concentrated in occupations that are perceived to require communal attributes, but not agents. For example, the three most common occupations for women in the U.S. involve caring for others (elementary and secondary school teacher, registered nurse, and secretary and administrative assistant; U.S. Department of Labor,2015), while men tend to work in occupations that require agency attributes (e.g., senior management, construction, or engineering positions; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016b). Sociological research shows that women are underrepresented in occupations that are highly competitive, inflexible, and require high levels of physical skill, while they are overrepresented in occupations that emphasize social contributions and require interpersonal skills (Cortes and Pan, 2017). Moreover, although men's household and family responsibilities have increased, women continue to perform a disproportionate amount of domestic work (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016a), have greater childcare responsibilities (Craig and Mullan, 2010 ; Kan et al., 2011), and are expected to continue to do so (Park et al., 2008)." This lets us know that although a change has been achieved, and an important one is still developing, gender stereotypes and roles persist in a transcendental way in our social orders even today. 

4. What is the difference between gender stereotypes between the United States and the country of origin of the authors of the blog (Colombia)? 

The difference is significant, but not monumental, in both countries these gender roles and stereotypes have become a problem that must be solved from the root, however, in the United States there is some progress in spaces, ideas and facts regarding the inclusion and vindication of women, in addition to these issues are more publicly recognized than in our Colombian country, as the people of our country would say "the sun is hidden with one finger". So it is important to recognize, study and solve these problems for a better coexistence of different genders freely in our society. 

Sources: Hentschel, T., Heilman, M. and Peus, C., 2021. The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men’s and Women’s Characterizations of Others and Themselves.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00011/full