Gender Stereotypes Influence Gender Roles In American Culture

Throughout the decades, there have been many gender stereotypes in American culture which influence gender roles in society and in the home. These stereotypes can affect a person from birth because of how differently males and females are treated by family, friends, and society. Gender equality has been an ongoing issue in American culture and the female gender has had a lot of discrimination to overcome. Female gender stereotypes have created a culture of gender inequality and social expectations that limit society’s understanding of what it means to be female. In the textbook, “Human Sexuality in a World of Diversity (9th ed.)” written by Spencer Rathus, Jeffery Nevid, and Lois Fichner-Rathus (2014), they discuss gender roles and stereotyping. They start by discussing how even emotions from the different genders are stereotyped, such as the assumption that females have more feelings of fear, sadness, and sympathy and males have more anger and pride. These stereotypes contribute to the given gender roles that culture has placed on what is culturally expected from a female or a male, including the type of …show more content…
Gender expectations often begin even before the birth of the baby. This happens as parent’s stereotype the sex of their baby with gender colors and pick out clothes, toys, and decorations based on gender and the traditional pink for girls and blue for boys. Starting from the first day of life, a baby is often handled differently based on the gender with a baby girl being the gender that is handled more gently. This comes from a social expectation that girls should be sweet and they desire the physical the contact of cuddling. In the culture of the United States the social expectations of males and females are expected to be distinctly different and opposite of each other (Crossman,