Nation: Gender Roles In The United States

Gender is the idea that the anatomy of a person correlates with the behavior, desires, and thoughts of that person. By definition, a nation is a place that contains people with common ancestry, ideals, language, culture, symbols, and/or traditions; however, the state can only control some of these categories, so the nation uses gender to create American traditions regarding gender roles. Women are viewed as the children on the gender spectrum analogy. They are innocent, pure, and in need of protection by guardians, who in this case are men. Men are seen as the progress-makers, the ones who push the nation forward. When women do not act as the docile counterparts of males, the parasitic male-female relationship ceases to function. Such gender …show more content…
People of color as well as women had to fight for their right to vote, to be equal to white men, because in the United States, “equality among citizens [rests] on the inequality of others living within the boundaries of the community” (“Social Problems” 2). Nations adjust the gender roles as necessary for their agendas at a certain period in time. As woman’s place in society changes, the nation changes. People try to avoid this, which is why feminist goals are generally difficult to attain without changing the entire structure of United States tradition. It took one hundred thirty-three years from the time the United States constitution was written to give women, who were an integral part of colonial life, the right to vote. To clarify, for almost sixty percent of the time this nation has existed, women were unable to vote, despite their integral roles in society. Ironically, once women victoriously won this battle, ability to vote was no longer a sign of status. The unfortunate truth is that the nation depends on non-male citizens to uphold their nation, to exemplify the limits of their nation. In this case, women are the balancing force upholding their heteronormative