Traditional and Non-Traditional Gender Roles, Research Paper Example

Though there has been a lot of progress in the representations of female and male roles in television and movies, there is still a large component of the traditional roles shown in the average family. Ultimately the reinforcement of gender roles creates a polarization of the two sexes. As portrayed in most media outlets, the role of the man is to be rational, efficient, independent, competitive and, at times, ruthless. The traditional role of women assigns the traits of femininity as being emotional, cautious, co-dependent, sensible, and subservient to their male counterparts’ needs.

One of the highest-rated and most-watched shows of today, for example, contains very clear portrayals of BOTH these traditional roles within the same comedy.  The show is called “Desperate Housewives”, and it is the story of four marriages and the dramas, children, and plotlines which encompass all of them.   One of these couples shows a traditional husband, who is a doctor and the breadwinner of the family, Dr. Rex Vandecamp.   His wife, Bree, is the stereotypical female who stays at home, raises children, and has her housewifely chores separated carefully and obsessively into days of the week.  Monday is laundry day, Tuesday is ironing, Wednesday is grocery shopping, etc.  You will never see (outside of the old Donna Reed sit-com of the early fifties, a more traditional role for the wife in a marriage, with Rex being the strong authority figure as well as the money-maker for the family.   Within that same show, however, you have Lynnette and Tom.  Lynnette leaves Tom to go back to the high-powered world of advertising and Tom becomes a typical “house husband” who then takes charge of raising the couple’s four children.

Magazines are more unisex today than in the past, but if you look at the newsstands carefully even now, you will find stereotypical examples which show how much the old roles of male-female pictures still abound.  For example, “Boy’s Life”, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts, is filled with stories of high adventure, camping, fishing, outdoor life, and other ‘manly’ activities.  On the other hand, “Better Homes and Gardens”, a still highly-selling magazine written almost exclusively for and about women, is filled with stories of cooking, recipes, ways to get stains out of laundry, and how to create flower arrangements which will beautify any home.

Other traditional television shows which were gigantic hits not long ago, include “All in the Family” where Archie earned money on a loading dock and ditzy Edith cooked those same dinners every night where a vacant space was left at the table to allow for the TV cameras.  “Happy Days”,  Dr. Kildare” (where every man was a doctor and every woman was a nurse or a candy striper), and even the award-winning series “Lonesome Dove” provide classic examples of how women were seen as capable of only a few selected roles while the capabilities of men seemed endless.  In Lonesome Dove, in fact, women were housewives or prostitutes while men fought Indians, hung horse thieves, took care of the “little women” who carelessly allowed themselves to be kidnapped by Indians, and other manly feats of the times.

Non-traditional roles are growing every season, however.  Comedies like “Will and Grace” not only show women actually earning a living without the help of a husband, but also helped to show the world that being gay is acceptable and that all love isn’t between a man and a woman.   Shows like “Scrubs” and “E.R.” and “The Practice” also show women competing with men in the two most watched and dramatic career choices available:  Law and Medicine.  We have truly come a long way in realizing that people are all created equal; that, inside that equality are differences which make the world a better and a more interesting place, but that an essential and important fact is that women can, have and will continue to do anything that a man can do.  In many cases, they are even able to do it better.

References

Al-Ghafari. “Gender Roles in Literature and the Media”. (2007). Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from  FW-Magazine.com: http://www.fw-magazine.com/content/gender-roles-literature-and-media

Chandler, Daniel. “Television and Gender Roles”. (2008). Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from Aber.ac.uk: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/gendertv.html#E

“Gender Roles and the Media”. “Gender Roles and the Media”. (2007). Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from InfoRefuge.com: http://www.inforefuge.com/gender-roles-media

Webb, Bridget. “Portraying Gender Roles to Children through Television and Film”. (2003). Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from UNC.edu: http://www.unc.edu/~bewebb/GENDER.pdf

Jayson, Sharon. “Gender Roles See a ‘Conflict’ Shift in Work-Life Balance”. (2009). Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from USAToday.com: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-26-work-life-balance_N.htm