Lesson 10: Sex and Gender

One of the traditional gender roles that is assigned to women is that they should be good cooks and homemakers. These days that line has become more blurred, but there are still many traditionalists that believe that a woman's rightful place is in the kitchen.

At birth, females are traditionally assigned the color pink and boys are assigned the color blue. This is the Social Learning Theory: the idea that babies and children learn behaviors and meanings through social interaction and internalize the expectations of those around them. Babies grow up in these gender confining roles and are taught that the differences between "things that boys like" and "things that girls like" are completely normal.

Other gender-confining roles can be seen in traditions like high school proms and weddings. At proms, the boy has to ask the girl to prom in some fancy way, wear a tuxedo, get the girl a corsage, pick her up from her house, and treat her to a nice dinner before driving her to prom. The girl just has to dress up, look beautiful, maybe get the guy a boutonniere, and rely on her date the entire night. These days prom is becoming more and more radicalized, with both boys and girls attending in groups or without dates, and all genders becoming more comfortable with dressing non-traditionally.

These days, it's common for women to wear short skirts, bare their legs, have attitude, and, essentially, sit pretty for men to sexualize them. Although the descriptions of what women should be like have significantly changed over the years, they are still confined with demeaning adjectives and are objectified on the daily, through magazines, movies, ads, etc.

While heterosexism is still going strong in social institutions, there are movements to prevent homophobia and legalize gay marriage, "granting" gay people the rights they should have had in the first place. Gay pride parades are one way cities are promoting equality celebrating all sexual orientations. While our society still has a long way to go on the topic of sexual orientation, we have come far in recent years as well, with many states now making gay marriage legal.