How Gender Roles have changed over time - Essay Example

How gender roles have changed over time? How gender roles have changed over time? ‎ According to the researchers, many researches can be carried out in order to analyze the changing gender roles that have taken place throughout the recent decade. The many research methods that have been proven to be successful show the research about gender roles. They show that gender roles come to the humans from the variety of social influences that he goes through. These influences are formed during the socialization that takes place throughout our lives starting from childhood to adolescence. Parents are known to be the first and foremost influence that has an impact on the gender role of a person. Since parents are the first teachers who teach the basics of talking and walking and more importantly the attitudes and behaviors. The parents who still hold traditional attributes tend to create different paths for their children distinguishing maleness and femaleness and the kinds of activities appropriate for each (Arber, 2003, p. 57). The researchers would not have been successful without the use of proper research methods. Many studies have shown how different methods can be used. These include interviews, observations, visual methods and many more. Out of which, through a series of processes carried out, it was found out how influential each of these methods are. Using appropriate methods can also allow the researchers to find out that parents respond to their daughter’s cries faster than they do to their son’s cries. Over the past few decades, there has been a change which is seen globally in the gender roles. Many of the countries worldwide have been facing great strides in being able to accept and adjust to the new definition of gender roles. With the help of many qualitative methods of research, it is found out that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, white men had once dominated the workplace, now are about 45% of all the workers, whereas, white women and other women dominate the workplace with 47% of the workplace. The percentage of women who worked outside their homes rose to 76% from 50% during the period 1970 to1995 (Kite, 2001, p. 215). This shows how much these qualitative research methods can enhance the development of quality measures and also report quality improvement efforts. Much importance has been given to the methods of qualitative research that can be and have been used to identify several ways of improving and studying the quality of care. Since gender roles are very important to be analyzed and to be able to study about the human nature and the changes of attitudes that eventually affect the society and the people in society. The immense development of the qualitative research methods, the focus groups and especially the interviews has become a standard part of the development and has been considered as a reliable instrument to collect data from surveys which has shown how the gender roles have changed mainly because of the women entering the workplaces and the men changing their attitudes towards raising children (Smits, 2003, p.605). The best way of research to find out the gender roles and their changes over the time is to carry out interviews and choose the people who have been involved in the process of changing gender roles. The above research has been taken out from the interviews that have been carried out during the past decade and they show how the statistics have made the change prominent over the time. Women have been interviewed which showed how they have gained the confidence to adopt more activities and responsibilities in the outside world to match up with the men (Unger, 2004, p.220). Men have been interviewed individually which shows their clarity of mind and ideas that is influential on their roles in the society (Maloney, 2006, p.14). With the help of interviews and critical analysis of the individual minds, it was found out that in 2008, men and women of the same percentage believed in traditional gender roles unlike decades back when men and women’s thinking varied immensely. According to the previous researches, more women and more men used to support the traditional gender roles that men should earn and women should stay at home, whereas in 2008, it was held through the questions being asked that a great number of women decreased who thought in the traditional way, and so did the number of men (Molony, 2008, p.157). The method of interviews has been adopted and implemented to bring the knowledge of the comparative quality data regarding the gender roles to the customers and other audiences such as sociologists, feminists and theorists. The interviews have been an informatory and exploratory assessment of the responses to reports and their effects on the society. The interviews are known to be one of the best ways to analyze the qualitative data and are also used as the best practice that are found in health plans receiving high scores on the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Surveys. In the same way, gender roles have been a highlighted issue for the researches since decades and have been in the limelight from time to time. Moreover, through interviews it was also easy to find out that more men have changed their attitudes towards the gender roles than women. The men in dual-earning households have mostly shifted their views on gender roles and on women entering the earning side with them. Initially the interviews suggested that the younger people have more flexible opinions about the gender roles but after interviewing the older generation, it was held that eventually they are changing their perspectives about the traditional gender roles too (Ginn, 2003, p.141). Older people have now started to accept working daughters and daughter-in-laws. During the research and the results, it was observed that interviewing the individuals was a better way to conduct the research process and understand the gender roles changing and their keen reasons (Holst, 2004, p 11). Women and men of the same age groups were interviewed; mostly young people so that the changing mind sets could be clear. These interviews and collective data were compared with the previous records of mind sets and answers given by the people. This research method bought a new picture regarding the gender roles, and it was obvious to be able to come to the root of the advancement. The interviews were a good and suitable method for research as they provide a full detailed view of the person who is being questioned unlike the other methods of research. The other methods of research include the visual methods, the questionnaires and participant observations. I believe these methods would not be appropriate enough to come to the conclusions regarding gender roles since the gender roles greatly involve the thinking and the perceptions of the people that can be known only when there is a detailed talk to the people and not when they are observed. Many of the questionnaires are known to be unauthentic because of the ways in which they are conducted. If people are asked yes or no questions, or multiple choice questions in which they choose one answer, their thinking will not be presented before the researcher. If these methods were used, the theorists would still be unsure about the reasons behind these changing perceptions and the true picture would never have come out (Momsen, 2009, p.80). With the use of interviews, the theorists and analysts know exactly the point where the change has taken place and what the society thinks. If observations are used, they might be unauthentic because of the different aspects of mind sets in which the people are at different times. At times general behaviors vary when the person is mentally disturbed or not attentive. These factors would affect the performance of the people due to which unauthentic research studies may be given out. This is why the researchers suggest interviews as a sufficient method to carry out the survey. With the results seen, interviews have proven to be a successful method to understand the changing gender roles and their influential impacts on the perceptions that have been built since decades (Sullivan, 2006, p.15). Interviews are more focused but however, there can be weaknesses in conducting interviews too. Sometimes interviews may be biased because of the interviewer who may be influencing to the interviewee. It is important for the interviewer to be polite and soft rather than threatening or using a harsh tone so that it does not impact the answers of the interviewee. It is important to overcome these weaknesses by making sure that proper interviewers are chosen and the interview is conducted in a safe and peaceful place where the interviewee can be focused on to the questions and their answers. The use of qualitative methods for researches especially interviews has been raised in every sector. According to a workshop held in 1998, sponsored by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a wide range of studies were highly regarded by the investigators in the use of qualitative research methods. The growth in the use of interviews to specify the change in gender roles is consistent with the development of the social policies and reflects the need for a morein depth understanding of naturalist settings and the importance of understanding the context of implementing social change. Thus, I believe interviews are the best possible research method to identify the changing gender roles and the changing attitudes and perceptions of the society. References Arber. P. 2003. Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships.  London: McGraw-Hill International. Ginn J. 2003. Gender and ageing: changing roles and relationships. Maidenhead: Open University Press Holst E. 2004. New life patterns and changing gender roles. Oxford: Elsevier. Kite M.E. 2001. Changing times, changing gender roles: Who do we want women and men to be? NY: John Wiley & Sons. Maloney P. 2006. Men and women: changing gender roles. London: Cornelsen. Molony B. 2008. Asias New Mothers: Crafting Gender Roles and Childcare Networks  in East and Southeast Asian Societies. London: Global OrientalPublications. Momsen J. 2009. Gender and Development. NY: Taylor and Francis. Smits J. 2003. “Changing gender roles, shifting power balance and long-distance migration of couples” Urban Studies, pp. 603-613 Sullivan O. 2006. Changing gender relations, changing families: tracing the pace of change over time. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Unger R. 2004. Handbook of the Psychology of Women and Gender. NY: John Wiley & Sons. Read More