FREE ESSAY ON GENDER ROLE REVERSAL

GENDER ROLE REVERSAL

Throughout one's life each of us face new obstacles due to the progression of the life
cycle. Many of these so-called obstacles we encounter are from the many role demands that
each one of us has to fulfill. As we get older our lives take on new roles, such as being
a: wife, parent, school teacher, etc. One role, however, will never leave us, that's our
gender.
We will never truly know what it's like to put ourselves in the shoes of the opposite
gender, but I can try and elaborate from my own personal experience and observations of
what I fell society would demand from being a male in the United States. I am going to
first discuss a few of the many negatives that I believe can accompany being a male. I
feel in some incidents women can manipulate situations with body language, but men must
use material or external influence to achieve this type of manipulation. The movie Erin
Brockovich immensely demonstrates this characteristic. Julia Roberts portrays a poor,
single mother who uses her cleavage in a few situations to get what she wants. Another
negative characteristic I feel about being a male would not being able to buy and wear
female clothing. I wanted to make sure that I took into consideration what is negative
about the entire gender role itself from a male's perspective. So, I got onto the
Internet and joined a transsexuals chat channel. I felt this would give me a great new
point of view about being a male. One valid issue that I feel society has made men view
as being horrible is men buying and wearing female clothing. One male mentions how
females can buy boys' items or girls', and are not viewed with amazement. I, for one,
have and do on occasion wear men's clothing. Why shouldn't I be viewed as weird or gay;
but a male cannot even wear a light pink colored shirt?
A few of the many positives that come along with being a male is that men are not
expected to bring that little-bit-of-something to a friend's house. I wonder how this
issue ever came about the proper etiquette see of being only limited to females. Another
positive characteristic I feel is to be dealt with fairly by service organizations. I for
one have experienced this harmful dilemma. There was a particular car I was yearning for,
but it was a bit out of my family's price range. I went to the dealership to see how much
they would knock off the sticker price for me. This particular local dealership would
only consider $500. I asked my father a few weeks later to go up there and see what type
of discount they would offer him. They offered him $3,500 off the sticker price. I did,
however, get the car. :-)
Society has created stereotypes that apply to each one of the gender roles. Each has its
positives and negatives, it's up to us what we decide to make of our lives.