Gender Roles On Heterosexuality

between two people consists of many gender roles that are in place to reinforce heterosexuality. The society continues to naturalize heterosexuality, where rules such as, “who pays for the date or wedding rehearsal dinner to who leads while dancing, drives the car, cooks dinner or initiates sex” (Ingraham 304) are constantly in place. As a result, because nobody ever questions these rules, people are raised into believing that based on their gender, they have a specific role to fulfil and people who go against these norms are typically judged and looked at as “deviant” and “abnormal.” Moreover, women do not begin life wanting to become a bride or with a desire to date and men do not exit their mother’s “womb knowing they would one day need …show more content…
Ingraham focuses mainly on women and explains how they are expected to embody a certain type of feminine behaviour and follow a path to “heterosexual womanhood.” The institution of marriage works to commodify heterosexual ideals by producing a “variety of wedding toys, featuring the “classic” white wedding” (Ingraham 306). This ends up influencing women and young girls to fantasize about their “perfect” wedding and husband and to desire gender-based toys. While Ingraham observes how the institution of marriage influences young girls into becoming the “ideal” woman, Mary Bernstein focuses on the gender division in marriage.
Bernstein argues in her article, “The marriage contract” that marriage is more than the idea of a beautiful wedding; it is a legal contract the enforces gender roles and regulates behaviours. Once a couple marries, several rules are enforced, such as that the wife must sacrifice any property that she owns to her husband, she must take her husbands last name, she is not allowed to vote and is no longer able to access her own contracts (Bernstein 354). These rules are meant to disempower woman and prove that marriage …show more content…
Even though people are not forced into opposite sex marriages, the government and the society use other methods to shape marriage into a heterosexual belief. The texts show that though marriage has become more diverse in accepting other types of relationships, the state’s interest of marriage still revolves around procreation and family purposes and because of this, it works to protect and reward those who participate in opposite sex marriages. There are also social expectations and cultural beliefs that keep heterosexual marriages sacred and necessary, as well as gender roles that are given to children at a young age, so that they grow up to become the “perfect” man or woman. Therefore, marriage is not simply about a white dress or an agreement between two people, but it is an institution, as well as a social and legal contract that regulates behaviours and reinforces normative