In society, as well as marriage, gender roles have truly changed for a noticeable, positive growth. Today women are independent and can speak their minds without judgment; or can they? Due to the rise in feminism and the imbedded traditions of a woman’s submissiveness to man, you realize how the progress of women in society, and in marriage, are moving a lot slower than should be had women always been given equal opportunity and the chance to communicate their ideas without stereotyping. Deborah Tannen’s, “Sex, Lies and Conversation,” and Lucy Hawke’s, “Gender-roles within American Marriage: Are they Really Changing,” cover these ideas thoroughly, and make a valid statement to where women could be and are, in place of gender role change and how it is being communicated through both sexes.
Tannen creates an idea based on communication clamming that in her research women, over men, state their number one reason for divorce was a lack of communication, calling the nearly 50 percent divorce rate, “… a virtual epidemic of failed communication.” Continuing into this idea, she observes that men’s communication is, “based less on talking and more on doing things together,” and for women, “Talk is the thread from which [intimacy] is woven.” This creates the stereotypes of the “emotional woman”. Because this is what men see at home, they therefore assume that women are going to bring theses emotions into their social life and the job-force, making women more subject to fold under the pressures of making hard decisions that affect society.
Hawke observes a more political approach. Through her ideas of feminism, she makes woman seem oppressed more so than submissive. Her article creates a scenario that women never had a “voice” so lack of communication was inevitable. The idea is that women were only given the chance to move up in society and become desegregated through convenience and challenging times. In support of these ideas Hawke states, “During WWII, women’s roles were drastically changed due to the need to support the economy of the war effort,” making a strong argument that people are only important when times get rough. Hawke said, “…both men and women were expected to return to their traditional pre-war roles,” and the women of that era were not happy with the idea of their life being dominated by traditional thinking because they were bringing out of the home and into the work place.
The so called overly expressed emotions of women have not only been discriminated in the past, but in both society and marriage, they have been idealized as a weakness; a way to make women look lesser than there “manly” counterparts. The relationships that they have had with men in marriage have established insecurity in their social ability to express themselves. When working, women in today’s age tend to put their emotions into what they believe. They express ideas with a more than logical forcefulness, creating vivid points of how it is going to affect human’s outward idea of life, and also glimpses into eternal emotional battles that they might have when making important decisions. This makes men uncomfortable since emotionally they can be incompetent. Tannen says, “Men live in a hierarchical world, where talk maintains independence and status,” they want to protect themselves, “… from being put down and pushed around.” They do not want to be pushed, but are ok with being the pusher. How this manages to be logical astounds me; this is hypocritical and has created a brick wall for growth in society, not just for women, but for all races and genders. I believe that this is vaguely yet finally being noticed due to a small, powerful article in the January 2nd -8th , 2010 print of “The Economist”. “Womenomics”, written by Joseph Schumpeter, shows that “the art of war” is not necessary in everyday trials. “Some of today’s most influential feminist contend that women will never fulfill their potential if they play by men’s rules.” He also adds that, “[Women] are less aggressive and more consensus-seeking, less competitive and more collaborative, less power-obsessed and more group-oriented.” This shows that women are creating a more joint force, one to not be reckoned with. Why can women raise the kids that mold society but can’t take society as a child and create security for everyone without being scrutinizedor stereotyped? This is answered by the roots of tradition.
Traditionally, through fault of Eve, women were cursed into submission to men for the eating of the forbidden fruit. Women were given the chance to be completely equal and failed through disobedience to God. In the beginning they were created equal. God saw that Adam was alone, and created woman from his rib. Adam called her “woman” and said that they were one, (Gen. 2:23-24). Over years this theological idea has been misinterpreted as the foundation for the so called oppression of women. Since the beginning of men’s time on earth communication from a woman has been taken as a lower point of view. Time has proven that the woman’s job is to nurture and submit, doing whatever the man in her life sees as fit to the family needs. Just as all things, evolution plays a role. Can the curse be broken? Women once again are moving up to the side of man rather than beneath. This creates a better communication between sexes, and helps develop understanding that women are not trying to antagonize men by trying to be better at what they do. They are simply trying to state that they are human and are able to balance good and evil, right and wrong, once again in a society ruled by years of one-sided aggressiveness. In marriage for a man and woman to understand each other is necessary, and submissiveness is sometimes needed to form understanding. As Tannen puts it, “In these times of resurgent ethnic conflicts, the world desperately needs cross-cultural understanding,” and this communication should start at home. Once these things become clear in the home between partners the rest falls into place. That is why women of the past have planted seeds of understanding into their children, so that they can take it out into the world and prove their ideas. Now, they are able to take it and sew it into society themselves. Men are now able to add to their children’s lives more intimately as well. Hawke says that it is now acceptable for women to work and men to be “At-home Dads.” This is reasonable and balances the idea of equality out; it takes away from the one-sidedness of society and marriage proving that women were made to be companions and not enemies. Women can still be the caretaker and supply to the family with emotion, but they do not have to continue to succumb to stereotypes created to demean and trick them into submission through society’s misinterpreted views of traditional values.
To figure out why women have to struggle to get ahead truly boils down to the way society has sterotyped them in the past. Just as minorities struggle with past afflictions, women have struggled against the odds since the day she was molded out of the bone man. Even though God made this, this way, it is proven through even scripture there is always room for change when the change made is the best for all the people of this world. Let it go, and move on. To hold onto the past allows no room for you to grab the future. Women are raising the bars in the economy as they have always done in the home. By using women for necessity, society has created a force that is growing and so for the good of humanity. We will learn one day that it is not who wears the pants in society but who can put them on correctly.
