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One of the most profound differences between men and women is the role each plays in reproduction. Menstruation and gestation have historically influenced and limited the role that women played in society. In some societies, a woman's value was measured in her ability to bear children, and raising children became the focus of many women's lives.
The increased entry of women into the workplace beginning in the twentieth century has affected gender roles and the division of labor within households. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in The Second Shift and The Time Bind presented evidence that, in two-career couples, men and women, on average, spend about equal amounts of time working ...
Despite the increase in women in the labor force since the mid-1900s, traditional gender roles are still prevalent in American society. Many women are expected to put their educational and career goals on hold in order to raise a family, while their husbands become primary breadwinners. However, some women choose to work and also fulfill a ...
In the sociology of gender, the process whereby an individual learns and acquires a gender role in society is termed gender socialization. [8] [9] [10] Gender roles are culturally specific, and while most cultures distinguish only two (boy/man and girl/woman), others recognize more.
In Native American culture, the two spirit had gender roles different from men and women. More specifically, in Navajo society, the third gender is known as nadle. [39] Nadle is a gender that does tasks commonly for both men and women, but also dresses according to whatever task they are doing at the moment. [39]
Gender systems are the social structures that establish the number of genders and their associated gender roles in every society. A gender role is "everything that a person says and does to indicate to others or to the self the degree that one is either male, female, or androgynous. This includes but is not limited to sexual and erotic arousal ...
Gender is used as a means of describing the distinction between the biological sex and socialized aspects of femininity and masculinity. [9] According to West and Zimmerman, is not a personal trait; it is "an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements, and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society."
A highly contentious issue relating to gender equality is the role of women in religiously orientated societies. [ii] [iii] Some Christians or Muslims believe in Complementarianism, a view that holds that men and women have different but complementing roles. This view may be in opposition to the views and goals of gender equality.