Gender Stereotypes Essay Example

Katherine of the Elizabethan era and Jennifer Aniston who is a popular actress of the present are two women who were confined to a box by society. Though they lived centuries apart their experiences with men and society are not much different. Katherine, from Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespear was forced to fit a gender stereotype and marry a man whom she wanted nothing to do with. Jennifer, who was interviewed and had an article posted about her experiences on many platforms was also forced to fit a gender stereotype that was created about her and it made her turn into the “rom-com queen” of movies. Now why even centuries apart do women still face the same gender problems? Many experts believe that although current and centuries-old examples of misogyny and prejudice towards women have stayed consistent with one another, modern-day authors and researchers argue that we misunderstand these issues and that is the reason they are not solved. 

Likeability is becoming more and more of an issue that women are facing in the media. Society is set up that if a person is not likable that they are not successful. Though, women have a much harder time being considered likable than men do. Likability is one of the largest double standards in today's society as a man can get away with nearly anything and still be considered likable but if a woman slips up just once their life in the media is ruined. Many people, especially men, are unaware of this double standard existence and if we were to spread more awareness of this large issue it would hopefully help to dismantle these ingrained beliefs. For example, Elizabeth Warren who was running for president was slandered for just running for president itself while a male counterpart was slandered because of the horrible things they have done. “John Edwards cheated on his cancer stricken wife then spent donor money to keep his pregnant mistress a secret, Elizabeth Warren decided to run for president.” (Women for President, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee) As you can clearly see Elizabeth Warren and John Edwards are unlikable for drastically different reasons. The double standard is off the charts here as John Edwards did something absolutely disgusting and therefore he is considered an unlikable person. While Elizabeth Warren did something that she should be praised for and yet because of it she is considered unlikeable. Current Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her book Why Everyone Should be a Feminist shares with us one of the many root causes to why double standards like these are forming. “All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract and please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women.” (24) Adichie explains how there are thousands upon thousands of articles explaining why women need to be likable and pleasurable for men yet there are barely any on how men need to do the same for women. This fact helps create this double standard as it makes women believe that they have to be likable to men in order to be accepted into society. Though this is a major root cause there are hundreds more revolving around the same topic of being likable. Adiechie states that this is a major issue and that both men and women need to be taught to be able to please everybody equally. If this were to happen men and women would be seen in a much similar light when the question of likability appears again. Furthermore, the growing double standard around being likable needs to be shut off as soon as possible as people are misunderstanding how large of an impact this is making on women’s and men’s lives. 

Another largely popular gender narrative is toxic masculinity, specifically how men have to compete with each other for women. Toxic masculinity is not only harmful to women but men as well. Society has set up the floor for constant competition over the love of a woman who acts the way society expects her too. Men are told that they should have a woman who follows society's expectations so when they love someone who is not in line with the expectations the man may try to change them. For example, In Taming of the Shrew Petruchio believed he had to change Katherine and force her to fit the status quo in order to be a real man. “For I am he who is born to tame you, Kate, and bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate Conformable as other household Kates” Petruchio is clearly saying that he needs to tame Kate and bring her to start acting tamed and exactly the way society expects her to. He is under the impression that he has to do this due to the fact that society has said in order to be a successful man you have to have a woman who is obedient towards you and society. Therefore, Petruchio thinks it is okay to harass Kate and try to force her to conform to how he wants her to act so he can be a man of power. Toxic masculinity has been around for as long as a man and women have coexisted with one another, yet it is still a major problem. One author Michael Salter argues that we approach the idea of toxic masculinity wrong and that we assume it is the same for all types of people and regions. “While themes of violence, entitlement, and sexism recur across communities, they show up differently in different places. (Michael Salter, The Atlantic) After lots of research of his own and looking at others research Salter found that people believe that Toxic masculinity is the same everywhere and therefore it needs the same solution but this is simply not true. If society looks at toxic masculinity as a problem which needs many solutions depending on factors such as where you grew up, how you were raised, your experiences, and many more. These factors have numerous different combinations and therefore they all require different solutions to be unlocked. Overall, we need to stop generalizing the issue of toxic masculinity as something that is the same for everyone as this is simply not true and it actually depends on a wide variety of things meaning something that could help stop toxic masculinity in some places may not work in Others.

To Summarize, women have faced similar harmful gender norms and gender stereotypes for centuries and the leading cause of this is that we are approaching the solutions to these problems in the wrong way and sometimes not even addressing them in the first place. We need to start realizing that these problems are real and they are extremely harmful to our society, especially women. Then we need to as well address the fact that these harmful norms and stereotypes have been around for centuries and we need to take a new approach on clearing them from our society and from our culture.