Comparing Gender Construction and Norms in US and UK - Essay Sample

Introduction

This paper compares and contrasts the gender construction and norms in the contemporary US and UK cultures. Gender is applied to describe the meaning of being masculine or feminine. This is not the same as "sex"; i.e., the biological variance between a woman and a man (Bettie, 2016). While women and men do have apparent differences, gender denotes the cultural differences existing between the two. The notion that men are less caring than women, for instance, or that women watch fewer sports than men, are a few some instances. The concepts on gender are established and conveyed through our various societal institutions, like the home, work and school.

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In the current US, the most powerful system for gender organization is a binary one, symbolized by two unequal and distinct categories (male and female, man and woman, boy and girl). One main chain in discussions concerning roles of gender in the United States has been the evolutional history from a single-income family or a family set-up in which one partner (usually the father) is responsible for the income of the family, to a dual-income family, or a family set-up in which both partners contribute to the generation of the income. Before the upsurge of feminism in the 60s and 70s and the women influx into the labour force in the 80s, women were mainly accountable for dealing with matters of home, while men laboured and generated income outside the house (Bettie, 2016). While some allege that this was a structure of the sexist, others hold that the structure merely signified labour division or a social system where a particular section of the people performs a single type of labour while another section performs the other type.

Americans across partisan and demographic groups approve that men ought to have equivalent rights with women. About 82% claim it is essential for men to have equal rights with women in the US, yet another 14% claim this is somehow significant. Only 4% of the Americans claim equality in gender is not at all significant. About 10% believe the country has strived a great deal in offering equal rights to women as men. These opinions differ by education, gender and, most importantly, partisanship (Juliana, Kim, & Renee, 2017).

In the UK, it may have appeared obvious that the differences in non-biological issues could be wiped out more effortlessly. Maybe, this is the reason for a widespread common assumption that, in the UK at least, several past social restraints have vanished, so that female gender is not tied anymore to the house or discouraged in their professions. It's also obvious that in the contemporary UK culture, gender roles have not just vanished, but in many compliments, they've become nearly distinct.

Particularly, with the upsurge in participation of mothers in the labor market, there is a responsibility for measures of policy that strive to minimize the work-family, including parental leave, improvement in the conditions of part-time working and provision of childcare. In the UK there was an insignificant applicable policy on such matters until the 90s. Later in 1997, there was a surge in policies devised to support the 'model of an adult-worker', in which mothers, comprising of single mothers, were inspired to work (Lewis, Knijn, Martin, & Ostner, 2008). Whereas entitlement of paternal leave has somewhat improved since its 2003 introduction, the case still remains that rare families can adopt it, since the loss in income is habitually prohibitive. Even so chiefly representative policies, like the concept of shared parental leave matters, since they inspire fathers to have more engagement in the infants' care.

References

Bettie, P. (2016). Gender Roles in the U.S: Sociology. Cochise College Boundless. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/cochise-sociology-os/chapter/gender-roles-in-the-u-s/

Juliana, M., Kim, P., & Renee, S. (2017). Wide Partisan Gaps in U.S Over How Far the County Has Come on Gender Equality. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gaps-in-u-s-over-how-far-the-country-has-come-on-gender-equality/

Lewis, J., Knijn, T., Martin, C., & Ostner, I. (2008). Patterns of development in work/family reconciliation policies for parents in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK in the 2000s. Social Politics, 15(3), 261-286. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/sp/article-abstract/15/3/261/1619133