Social Construction Of Gender Roles Essay

For years, the United States have praised traditional nuclear families for their structure and the roles given within he family. The father’s role was to work and provide for the family, while the mother’s role was to take care of the kids and do household labor. Downing and Goldberg (2011) found that it’s not until heterosexual couples procreate, that the work and family roles within the home become unequal (as cited in Deutsch, 1999). Feminist assume that the roles given to men and women are socially constructed based on gender, which differs from the sex of a person (Smith & Hamon, 2012). Since lesbian couples are constructed of two women, the socially constructed gender roles do not refer to them. Lesbian couples try to have an egalitarian …show more content…
According to Downing and Goldberg (2011), lesbian couples with one biological parent, tend to regender by having the non-biological mother working a paid labor job, while the biological mother focused more on childcare. Downing and Goldberg (2011) found that in eight out of the 30 lesbian couples studied, the biological mother was unemployed, while the non-biological mother worked full-time. Also, out of the 30 lesbian couples researched, about half of the couples said that they divided labor by having one person work full-time, while the other only worked part-time (Downing & Goldberg, 2011). The group of women who worked part-time were mostly all the biological mothers of their children (Downing & Goldberg, 2011). Ironically, this structure is similar to heterosexual couples today where the man is the full-time employee and the woman works less hours than the man. Feminist argue that social norms are the blame for this structure and the outcome oppresses both men and women (Smith & Hamon, 2012). Because of social norms, lesbian couples tend to follow the norms of heterosexual couples. This may cause conflict within same-sex