Sex Roles not Strictly Voluntary

PorlyDyke at Shakesville reckons that we’re all at least a little bit sexist, racist, etc. We can’t help it because we are raised in a memescape filled with racist, sexist, younameitist ideas and their enactment in society. It’s best to acknowledge that you are infected with such memes and deal with them honestly if you want to overcome them. Or even if you just want to be honest with yourself about the way you feel and what kinds of notions you have embraced.

I got to thinking about the sexist attitudes I was raised with. Most of these were not explicit messages about the roles of women; rather, they were more in the way of inferences drawn from the roles that the women I knew actually played. Making sense of observations led me to assume that men and women had different roles and that these were proper. Later, when I was explicitly told that this was the case, it did not occur to me to question it. It was not until college that I encountered anyone who problematized gender roles. I was not too invested in the roles that I grew up with and was pretty open to new ideas, although I did not really give much thought to the unconscious prejudices that I harbored.

When I left the shelter of school, I came to realize that many of us have our roles thrust upon us. They are not entirely of our own choosing, if they can be said to be of our choosing at all. Often, it is the path of least resistance to adopt culturally favored roles rather than to buck the trend and do as we please.

Moreover, the role structure of society informs the ambitions that we pursue. Most of my female high school classmates aimed to be wives and mothers foremost. Most of us were from working class backgrounds, so the world of work was not necessarily something that we looked to for fulfillment. Those women who had careers in mind looked to be teachers or nurses or librarians. If a single female lawyer or doctor or scientist came out of my class, I don’t know about it. There was one TV journalist, Debbie Norville, but she was exceptional.

Many of my female classmates were as intelligent and as capable as anyone and might have taken on any challenge if they had felt for a moment that these were remotely open to them. We males were led to believe that we could achieve anything that we set our minds to, (a dangerous lie that makes me feel disappointed that I never amounted to anything), and this was in complete contrast to the messages, explicit and implicit, that my female peers received.