Jessica Laiz

Composition
Dr. Milton
Fieldwork report
10/21/2017

Introduction

Gender roles has always been a big problem in society since day 1. Gender roles guides

everyones lives from the day were born. it controls us. Telling people what they can and cannot

do. Gender roles is something that shouldnt be taken with us in the further generations. Lets let

kids grow up to enjoy what brings them joy and not

be afraid of being judged because maybe sally likes

trucks and Tim likes dolls.

The experts -

Is gender roles affecting society? According to Penelope Eckert and sally McConnell- Ginet in

Learning to be gendered they talk about gender having to do with everything to the name to

the color of clothing they should buy for them. In the article they state that from infancy, male

and female children are interpreted differently and interacted with differently. Provided facts

from experiments show if parents had a girl they would be treated more gently, if they had a boy

then they would act more playful. People even seem to apply gender stereotypes to a computer

generated speech depending on whether they perceive the computers voice as a male or
female. We simply cannot even interact with another human being unless we can attribute a

gender to them.

Gender roles also plays a big part in sports. Jordan snider, author of breaking gender

stereotypes in sports makes a great point in his article. He believes we shouldn't put kids down

and instead encourage them to take a part of a sport. Sports is for every gender and shouldn't be

seen as too manly or too girly. Parents should be teaching kids not to stereotype and give them

hope and give them role models. In the article he talks about the parents doings. That they

should avoid stereotyped speech due to the fact that kids can pick it up from them and instead

parents should teach them that it isn't okay.

Methods
Have you been a victim of
stereotypes?
To answer my research question: is gender roles
75.76
affecting society? I conducted a survey of 10

questions covering gender roles in society. I asked

24.24

different questions to see different point of views Yes No

from different people of different ages and nationalities.

Results

In my survey I conducted I asked 10 questions and out of the 10 two caught my eye. One of them

being have you been a victim of stereotypes? over (70%) of participants responded yes and
 Do you find stereotypes rude?
80
only (24%) answered no. they ratio between the
60
60.61 two are huge. When asking this question, I was
40
36.36
20 hoping for these kinds of answers. I wanted to cast a
3.01
0
light on how common it is for anyone to be put into
Yes No Sometimes
these categories and stereotypes. The second

question that caught my attention was do you find stereotypes rude? (60%) of participants

answer yes. These two questions were my favorite since I agreed with the answers the most. It

really helped backing up just how much stereotypes affect us all. stereotypes arent to be taken

as a joke due to mostly all of them being there to hurt and bring people down.

Discussion

Throughout my research the results appeared to confirm how stereotypes affect people. From

birth, the work place, school, to sports. Stereotypes control us. Afraid that if we step into a

category that seems out of our gender then we are different. Out of fear people stay away

from the labels. In my research my best discovery was the amazing experts that are writing blogs

all over the internet, trying to make a change in society and the huge following behind them.

From my collected data from my conducted

essay I could see most people are educated on

the subject and understand the consequences

it could have on a person.

Conclusion

In conclusion my data from all 34 participants was very successful in backing up not only my

research but also from the expects. My data backs up their statements well that gender roles

does affect society today as we know it. The important thing Ive learned from this research is

that we shouldnt be afraid to express ourselves or let gender roles stop us. Lets break down

those stereotypes and show the world that we can do anything.