Gender Stereotypes II

Author : Ami Fitri Utami, SE., MSM

Talk about what should we do based on our gender, there is an interesting quotes by Shashi Deshpande, an Indian novelist which focusing her writes on feminism. She said:

“A wife should always be few feet behind her husband. If he is an MA you should be a BA .If he is 5’4’tall you shouldn’t be more than 5’3’tall. If he is earning five hundred rupees you should never earn more than four hundred and ninety nine rupees…”

The above quote shows us that the traditional gender role which restricted male and female in India assumed that female should be less than male almost in everything.
Following above statement, Rosalind Barnett a Harvard Lecturer contended an argument in The Harvard’s education website (2008) that in previous era, there are some stereotypes or anecdote about “dad (man) who should hang his working suit after work and mom (woman) who use a pearl while doing the house chores”, this anecdotes means that a woman should only and capable only to do house core while the man is capable to earn money and some other meaningful economical activities. Even more, Schaefer argue that in 1940s – 1960s most of media shows female characters as helpless passive and incompetent, otherwise they also concerned that female has a high caring sense in which most of the character showed as a nurse or a voluntary worker. In the other hand men also experienced the same things as women, the gender role which suggested men to do the anti-feminine or even more self-reliant element give them some restrictions about how to behave. As William et al (2009) stated that individuals are expected to behave in ways that are consistent with their socially defined gender, and experience negative outcomes if they “deviate” from the gender prescriptions. It simply told that man should only do the masculine or “the man’s” activities and woman should do only the feminine or “the woman’s” activities.