Gender Roles

As humans, we always have a set of activities that can be divided into 3 categories:

• 1^st Parental:
  • House chores
  • Raising kids
  • Taking care of the sick
  • Taking care of the elders
• 2^nd Economic:

Which are implemented to gain an income for life expenses:

• 3^rd Genderised
• Or participating in public life:
  • Joining associations or charities.
  • Participating in elections
  • Joining political parties
• We are talking about 3 types of activities we do as humans, but still some similarities among them exist.

For example, parental activities include ones implemented through performing house chores, such activities can have economic aspects, the difference lies in the existence of a payroll or wage, and most men perform such activities as economic ones, whilst women tend to perform them as parental ones.

Why are they categorized as gender roles?

Stereotyping of both men and women impose these roles on a certain gender, and deprives or limits the other gender of performing them.

In the Middle East, the parental activities mostly fall to women to do, and even should a man do them as well, he would be categorized as helping her out!

Taking a part in public life falls mostly to men more than women, and communities enhance this stereotyping. Gender roles can change with time and location. In the past, few women had their participation in the economy, whilst now adays they have broader contributions. Women in Syria had not been allowed to participate in elections before 1949 is an example of this change.