Gender role facts for kids

Louise Weiss along with other Parisian suffragettes in 1935. The newspaper headline reads "The Frenchwoman Must Vote."

Gender role is the idea that people should behave in certain ways because of their gender. As an example, it was traditionally the role of the man to earn money, and the role of the woman to educate the children. Observed behaviour can either come from the person, or be a result of social and cultural factors a person is exposed to. In the case that they are determined by the society and culture a person grows up in they are the result of socialization. There is still a discussion to what extent the observed behaviour is a function of the personality, and to what extent social factors play a role in the determinatioon of gender-specific differences in behaviour..

Gender roles are dependent on the culture and history of the society that they are part of. While most cultures express two genders, some express more. Androgyny, for example, has been proposed as a third gender. Other societies have been claimed to have more than five genders, and some non-Western ones have three genders – man, woman and third gender. Gender expression refers to the external manifestation of one's gender identity, through "masculine," "feminine," or gender-variant or gender neutral behavior, clothing, hairstyles, or body characteristics.

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  Breaking out of gender role: Michelina de Cesare was a Brigand who fought for the freedom of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

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  During the Second World War, women often did work that had been done by men beforehand.This image shows a woman working in a factory, in the 1940s.

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  A male nurse at a hospital of the US Navy attends to a child

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women says that stereotyped gender role should be abolished.

Images for kids

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  Changing norms of gender socialization: Louis XV in 1712, wearing the customary clothes of unbreeched boys, would be considered cross-dressed in the 21st century.

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  The world turned upside down, by Israhel van Meckenem the Younger. The wife is holding the sceptre and the man is spinning.

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  A woman publicly witnessing at a Quaker meeting seemed an extraordinary feature of the Religious Society of Friends, worth recording for a wider public. Engraving by Bernard Picart, ca 1723.

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  An 1883 German illustration of children playing house

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  Stereotype content model, adapted from Fiske et al. (2002): Four types of stereotypes resulting from combinations of perceived warmth and competence.

See also

In Spanish: Rol de género para niños