Devor Response

“The dominant gender schema in North American society […] leads us to believe that female and male behaviors are the result of socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive, and will therefore dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes.” (Devor 431)

I find myself in a disagreement with this statement said by Aaron Devor. I do not believe that we were all brought up with this mentality. The above stereotype of men being aggressive and dominant and women being feeble and domestic is not true for many people. Although society pushes these images as being the norm for us, not all people grow up this way. Some men are not raised to be the competitive and dominant male we may see in television shows or movies today. There are some men who may even be a little bit more on the feminine side and some who believe in equality. On the other side of the spectrum, the purpose of females according to society is to reproduce, raise the children, and complete the domestic duties of the house. However, women do not need to follow this path. Nowadays, women have the right and freedom to decide how they want to live out their lives. Women should have the right to determine if they want to have children or not. I, personally, at the moment do not have any intentions of having children in the future. This does not mean that I should be looked down upon for not fulfilling the stereotypical roles of a wife. Women today can also sustain themselves without any assistance from a male. They are fully capable of being independent from a man. This social ideology is completely false and could have maybe described the lifestyle of a couple from the 1950’s. However, today in the year 2009, men and women can live freely as they chose and live in equality.