Gender Role Stereotypes III

Author : Ami Fitri Utami, SE., MSM

However, some of the facts in previous discussion are no longer plausible in nowadays. This is caused by the changing of the gender role it-self. As Gallacher and Klieger (2001) argued that gender role can be considered as dynamic, it can be depend on age, life situation and even more race. Schaefer (2006) also stated that people around a person (e.g.: parents, siblings, other adults) give an important impact to form ones’ gender-role pattern. For instance, if a girl lived in a family in whom her mother is a career woman, she will have a belief that it is possible for her to become a career woman. These statements simply contended that social environment give us a huge impact on defining our gender-role.

When we talk about social environment, it will also identical with people or even more human as a social being. Social environment will changed as how human changed, as what Wren (2005) stated that human is a subject of continuous changes. The changes itself could be in a form of a changing assumption, or even change on how human react on certain situation, include the gender-role

Talk more about the changes, the restrictions of gender role itself is not awfully as rigid as before. Even though in some certain race or country the rigid restriction about how a man and woman should behave is still obviously occur, people in some other country have already changed their perspective regarding to the gender roles pattern or stereotypes, especially in the assumption where woman should do less than man, or woman should only do the “woman’s’ job” and so does with man. As what Rosalind Barnett (2008) says “ There have been dramatic changes in how men and women look their lives and what they are doing”, she also contended that women have experienced long changes in the past 50 years, recently women are getting married later and make up 50 percent of the work force. Furthermore, the shifted roles in the families also occur, Schaefer (2006) stated that in survey done in 2002 in U.S, 69 percent of respondent said that if one parents stays at home with the children, it makes no difference whether that parent is the mother or the father. Men’s role have also changed, Barnett (2008) also said that nowadays men have more responsibilities in the home and in caring for the children.