Too many times when I was a kid did I hear those words; I was Just as good as some of the other boys if not better. I was never a girl who wanted to play house or dress up, I always wanted to play sports and rough house. But whenever I tried to play some of the sports, I was considered the weak link because I was a girl, not as good as the guys, not strong enough, not tall enough, just not enough off boy. I knew the stereotypes; girls cook, clean, and take care of kids; whereas boys are tougher and build, work and lead.
I hated these stereotypes and never really felt like I fit into the stereotype for a girl… ‘ never liked to clean and I can’t cook. But I loved building things and working. I think in the case of Nature vs.. Nurture, it mainly depends on how you were brought up, because although men have more testosterone in their system and it makes them easier to anger not all men are flying off the handle because they are mad; the same thing applies to women, we have more estrogen in our system which people would argue that it makes it easier to make us cry, but there aren’t a lot of women sitting in the streets ring for no reason.
I believe that nurturing has a lot to do with the way that someone grows up, I grew up with a lot of boys, so I learned how to hold my tears if I fell down, I picked myself up, sucked it up, and kept going. I never saw anything wrong with that, that’s Just how everyone in my family was no one, was really ever babied. I was taught at a young age that if I wanted to do something, even something that was considered a boy sport or something that usually only boys did, I was supported. I loved football as a kid. My dad and I would go to the park on the sends and throw a football around and play a whole bunch of different sports.
In middle school I really wanted to play football on the school team. I never got a chance to because I didn’t have the time for it. I had some friends that were subject to sexual harassment, and even though people say to report it, the majority of the time people don’t. The majority of the time, women consider it their problem and my friends would tell me that they would handle it and not mention it anymore. In the work force, there is a large inequality between men and women. The main difference s the pay gap, as the years have gone by, the pay gap has slowly gotten closer, but it is still there and men still make more than women.
Another difference is that eventually women hit the glass ceiling where they can no longer move up in a firm and reach the executive level. Whereas men find themselves on the glass escalator, with the ability to reach higher-level positions, better work assignments, and higher salaries a lot quicker. The only difference between the two is gender it is the turning point as to if you will hit the glass ceiling or ride the glass escalator. Slowly, the gender stereotypes have started to merge together.
It isn’t uncommon to see a woman in men’s clothing, it’s also not uncommon to see men in women’s clothing, albeit it’s frowned upon. The pay gap is slowly decreasing and women are slowly getting more respect, as well as better positions and better pay. I think in the future a lot of these stereotypes may still be here in certain areas, but for the most part I believe they may fall apart, still remembered and occasionally enforced, but for the most part nonexistent. In the future I think there will be other stereotypes that will hold people back from getting what they want and where they need to be.
