Breaking A Cultural Rule About Gender

It is important to note important terms in this paper such as gender, gender roles and patriarchal society. Gender is a distinguishing form used to differentiate between a male and a female. Although gender is mostly referred by us as sex there is still a noticeable difference between the two terms. This difference is basically more on the fact that gender refers more to a social construction wherein sex refers to a biological condition. Gender roles are most commonly found in a particular social group or system.

Gender roles refer to a set of behavioral norms that are usually connected with males or females. Of course, gender roles differ from one place to another. In most countries females are treated almost as an equal to that of males. However, there are still countries which remain rigid with their beliefs that men are superior to that of women and they even support the Platonic view that women are incomplete men. Of course these kinds of beliefs are the primary reasons why many women are enraged and thus many movements are formed which aims to liberate women from their restricted roles in the society.

One may wonder why it is the case that even though many feminists movement already emerged, the successes of these movements are still considered limited. On my own viewpoint, I think the reason lies on the numbers of feminists’ movements that emerged. With so many forms of these movements, they find it hard to solidify themselves into one movement which would liberate women once and for all. Due to different beliefs and contrasting viewpoints, women themselves argue with each other as to what they should be fighting about.
However, one common belief between these numerous groups of women lies on the fact that the cause of repression and marginalization among women lies within the patriarchal society. Patriarchal society emerged from the belief that fathers should be the one to take good care of the welfare of their family. It is through this that the belief that men should take the bulge of the responsibility for their community emerged. One can easily see the reason why women consider patriarchy to be the one to blame for their conditions.
As for me, the only difference between a man and a woman lies on their biological differences, nothing more and nothing less. It is common knowledge that we are living in a society which is filled with rules and roles. There are things that only men can do as there are things that only women are expected to do. As a woman, the society expects you to be gentle and you should take care of your family in such a way that a woman must make sure that her family is well-feed, properly clothe and the like.
Common expectations from men on the other hand lies on the fact that they are physically tougher than women and thus men are expected to act tough. Most men are afraid to show their weaknesses and they seldom cry even though they so wanted to. Men are also expected to take care of his family, though in a different way from that of a woman. The taking care expected from a woman is very minimal as compared to those from men. Women are expected to do the household chores, to cook the food that would feed her family and the like. Men on the other hand, are expected to provide the means or the resources needed by his family.
Men should be the bread-winner in their family and this is primarily the reason why a man takes it hard when a woman feeds her family. This kind of scenario is most common in a family where the man can’t find a job and thus it fells on the woman’s responsibility to make sure that their family have the resources they need in order to survive. Most men can’t take this kind of living and their prides suffers great damage. Anyhow, such are most of the common gender rules our society are boxed in. It is from the examples stated above from where I got the idea of what kind of gender rule I should break.
As a woman, if you want to be respected by the people around you, you should act the way a woman should. Of course there are many ways on which a woman can choose to act but a respectable woman is expected to act with finesse and she should not act loosely if she does not want to be treated like a slut. One can see how unfair it is that men can do what they want without worrying to what it could possibly cause them in most cases. For example, if a girl decides to have two or more boyfriends the society would brand her as a slut.
If a guy on the other hand decides to have two or more girlfriends then he is considered great among his peers and it would not do much damage to his reputation as compared to the damage a similar act could inflict upon a woman. If a man was insulted he can easily take revenge by fighting back. A woman, on the other hand cannot do the same thing because it would be unwomanly to act in such a way. Of course women fighting each other are a natural phenomenon on slums and places of such sorts but women who had proper education are expected by their society to act in a more finesse manner.
It was this kind of experience I would share in this paper. For this project I asked a friend of mine for her help. I asked her to pretend that we fell into a fight and that we should go on with our act for a number of days. This friend of mine which I would hide in the name Anne had been my friend for as long as I can remember and thus we have a common circle of friends. However, Anne is studying from a different school than mine and thus she’s got friends whom I don’t know as I do have mine.
Now the scenario we decided to portray is to fool our friends into believing that we really fell into deep hatred with each other and this particular conflict could not be resolved in any way. The reason of the fight would be something really deep that both of us would not want to discuss with any of our friends. To make matters worse I would pretend that Anne has been doing things to me which I can’t tolerate wherein Anne on the other hand would appear weak in front of her friends and she would tell stories of how badly I acted with her. On the first day of our fight nobody really believed that we have been fighting each other.
However, as the time moved our fiends slowly got into believing that we really are fighting with each other. Our first approach had been exchange of hurtful words but these did not convince our friends and so on our third day of acting we tried to act a little harsher and thus we ended slapping each other. Of course the slapping happened in a public place of all places and it is needless to say that the experience had been really embarrassing. It had been such a hard task fooling our friends but we finally convinced them when Anne and I got a little physical.
There are so many things I’ve expected out of what happened. I expected that some of our friends would side with her wherein some would side with me. However there are also a number of things which occurred which I haven’t expected. Some of Anne’s friends from her school convinced Anne to wait for me on my way home and in order not to drop our act Anne let her friends convinced her. It was only through a text message that I’ve escaped from an encounter with her friends. Another thing I did not expect is a friend of mine which I would hide in the name Toby really sided with Anne at first.
Toby called me after learning about what happened and he asked me how I managed to act in such a way. He even went as far as to say that he didn’t expect it from me of all people to act in such a way. However, after explaining my self Toby apologized and decided to stay neutral. He later said that what made him act rashly is the fact that Anne had been very pitiful in recounting her story. Of all the things which I’ve expected the only thing which happened is that out group of friends really divided themselves between Anne and me. However, there are some who remained neutral and worked themselves hard to bridge the gap between Anne and me.
Of the experience I have learned how society treats catfights differently from male fights. Of course if male friends fell into dispute similar thing could also happen (splitting of friends, etc. ). However, male fights are more common than catfights especially if things get physical. My mother winded up with what happened and she really boxed my ears after learning of my fight with Anne. She then went on to lecture that an educated woman does not act in such a way and that it is very childish and unladylike of me to get myself involved in such a fight.
Many hurtful things and judgment also befell on me and Anne that I am glad that our acting is finally over. Upon experiencing this I have learned that though women appears to be equal to that of their male counterparts nowadays, such is still not really the case. Men can do most things without ruining their name and reputations wherein a woman would have to endure demeaning words, stares and the like if she decided to act contrary to what was expected of her. In terms of fighting a guy is more justified to defend his self to that of a woman. When you are a guy you can do almost anything and people wouldn’t say a thing about it.
You can pick a fight whenever you feel like it and people would only consider it natural some would even went as far as to say that he’s a real and admirable man to be able to handle such a fight and the like. Such things got no place for women and thus catfights are considered as a form of entertainment by some (based from my experience). Besides when I tried to justify myself by asking a friend of mine how is he different from me when he himself fights for what he believes in he answered that he is a man and I’m a woman as if that alone is answer enough.
Such is the unfairness of the patriarchal society we are living in today. No wonder many oppose this kind of society. However, I believe that if women really want to get out of the box society put them into they should do so by giving up the benefits they enjoy in this kind of patriarchal society simply on the basis that they are a woman. Reference: http://www. britannica. com http://education. yahoo. com http://www. infoplease. com