Allison

__Gender Expectations and Stereotypes__

“One night I came home later than my curfew. I had been out with my friends, and although I wasn’t drinking or doing anything wrong, my parents were upset with me. My brother, who is a year younger than me, came home later than his curfew all the time. When I came home, my brother was still out at a party, and his curfew was earlier than mine. When I told my parents this, my mom said, ‘Yes, but we expected more from you, Christine.’” Why are expectations often higher for boys than girls in the family?

My mom was punished rather than her brother because her parents had higher expectations for her. In many families, female family members are expected to be more moral or “good.” It is often believed that girls have more responsibility and so if they act in a way that people do not find moral or don’t see it as the right thing to do, they will be frowned upon, usually more than if they were a boy simply because expectations are higher. This realization made me curious as to why. Women are usually placed with jobs of more responsibility. Although men are traditionally seen as the “money makers” in the family (although this is definitely changing nowadays), women have to do the most important job; taking care of the family and children especially. They must cook and clean, and look after everyone when they are sick. They must see to the wellbeing of the family as a whole and each member and thing individually. This is a great deal of responsibility, and as it is traditionally the role of a woman, women are seen as having to be more responsible and if they sometimes don’t act like this, it is a much more offensive move than if a man does the same thing. Another example of this presented by my mom happened when one day her friend drove her home after she had drank a lot at a party. She said her mom was livid, telling her that she should have been more responsible. My mom’s brother had come home after drinking before, and although he was told off also, his mom wasn’t nearly as mad. My mom thinks that this is because this is what she would have expected from him, but she wouldn’t have expected this from my mom. My mom had to do jobs required more responsibility and hard work because she was a girl and needed to learn these jobs in order to be a responsible mother when she got older. Her brother had to do jobs that required less responsibility, but usually more labor. This is even present in families when girls are young. My mom said that when she was younger, her brother had to mow the lawn and she had to clean the whole house. She said that if her brother did just an ok job with the lawn, it didn’t matter because it was outside, and therefore couldn’t be perfect. However, she would get in trouble if she didn’t clean the house fully. So, even at a young age, more responsibility and an expectation to do her jobs more fully and of better quality were presented. This also shows that she was given jobs that may traditionally be given to the girl because they are jobs that mothers must do, while her brother was required to do jobs of more labor, like mowing the lawn, although he didn’t need to do as high quality a job because there was a lower expectation for him.

Today in class when asked who had done their interview for this assignment, all of the girls except for one said that they had done it, and all of the boys except for two said that they hadn’t. This shows that the majority of people who were responsible and began their assignment earlier were girls. If the majority of people who do something responsible belong to a certain gender, it is natural that we connect this trait to that gender, because we are making a generalization. Since we generalized that girls get in work earlier, we will therefore create a certain expectation about girls getting work in earlier. I believe that since girls need to be responsible in order to be a mother, we sort of have a natural instinct about how to deal with certain things in order to be efficient (generally, of course, not always). Because of this, we are often the majority in which people tend to make these generalizations, and then in turn have higher expectations about us.

i like it a lot. you expand on teh topic with many anecdotes but teh thing isn't there is exactly WHY you think expectations are highter for girls.WHY do peopel expect more from them. -GLR