Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Week 3, Question 3
One concept from this chapter that I found interesting was the concepts of roles. “Norms and roles are related but different from each other. Norms are expectations of behavior patterns for the group as a whole. Roles identify the particular way we, as individuals are expected to act in a group.” Harris & Sherblom) Take the structure of a family for example. A family is a group. You have the parents and the children and each member of the family has a certain role to play. The father usually takes on the role of the financial provider. He is expected to go to work and make money to provide the things the family need. He is also supposed to take care of the manual labor the family requires. The mother usually takes on the nurturing role. She is supposed to provide love and support and take care of the house and the children on top of working a job. The kids take on the role of respecting their parents as they grow and learn from them. You see these roles played out whenever you look at families. It is different with every family you look at, but those roles are there.
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I loved your post. I work with children and I face gender roles everyday. I have the fun job of trying to make children understand the social role of gender, but also help them understand the face value of gender roles. On a daily basis I have children making fun of each other for gender role infractions, but I enjoy that I can help to aid in the understanding that gender roles are a pure reflection of our culture. Children are faced with enough pressure to perform as there peers suggest, and I take pride in sharing with them my educated ideas and wisdom that has been provided to me through my life experiences.
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