Gender Role Reversal Essay, Research Paper

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.