Gender Roles? What is it? Have you come across this term before? Before discussing about gender roles, we need to first understand what it means.
“Gender roles are behaviours learned by a person appropriate to their gender and it is determined by prevailing cultural norms”
Conversing about gender is not easy and sometimes makes people feel uncomfortable. The same as thinking of changing the status quo. Gender roles also determine how each sexes should act, think, speak, dress and even interact, just to suit the context of the society. These are usually adopted since childhood. For example, at home, each individual have certain assumptions on decision making and so on. At work on the other hand, the presumptions are all about position, power and organizational structures.
In this video, we have interviewed Belinda Chee, Rebecca and Patricia K to share what are their thoughts on gender roles. For many mums, including mums in this video, they usually gender stereotype their baby from the start, which means, if they know that they will have a baby girl, they will eventually buy pink clothes, dresses and what not for the baby girl.
As Belinda Chee says, although she wanted to avoid this gender stereotype, her baby girl will eventually gravitate to the girly stuff anyway and same goes to her baby boy. There is nothing much that she can do about it and I believe it happens to some of the mums out there too.
For Patricia K, because she grew up with her dad, she is more gender neutral and she most likely loves doing male stuff and that explains her career. For her line of career, it doesn’t make any difference if you are female or not, she added more.
Rebecca, on the other hand, added more on how she allows her kid to express their likes and interests even if it goes against gender norms. She also added that if Ashton wants to play with girls’ toys, she will allow him to do so because she believes that it is up to him to decide.
Meanwhile, if you want to know how our mums reacted when we asked about their opinion about what they would do if they know that their kids are gay, do watch the video below.
To watch Malaysian mums taste test formula milk and share their thoughts regarding breastfeeding and feeding their babies formula milk, click here.
For more parenting tips and tricks, as well as the best promotions in baby products, visit Motherhood.com.my now!
Share with us in the comments what you would like us to talk about next!