Gender roles still severely exist in todays society. Everyone always just looks in the wrong areas. Yes, women are disadvantaged by lower pay but they also get scholarships to enter male dominated areas, encouraged to work instead of caring for kids, free degrees in engineering.
Now lets look at men hey?
Primary school teaching. If you're a guy go into primary school (grade school) teaching and discover the huge gender barriers. Not in promotion. God no. You are nearly FORCED to move up the ladder. Less than 10% of primary school teachers are men in Australia and less than 2% of early childhood teachers (5 years and under) are men. This doesn't compare to New Zealand where less than 0.5% of men are primary teachers.
Ok, the main reason for that statistic is fear of being called a pedo, but what also is an influence is society considers it a "womans" job.
I know this is about gender roles but still... I'm nearly an expert into men's rights so I have to rant. I apologise in advance.
There is also severe inequality in regards to men in Australia that is reinforced by law and policy.
Women have scholarships only available to people without penises to undergo the training required to be principals.
Principals tried to create a scholarship that gave scholarships to men to undergo primary and early childhood training but got rejected as it was a breach of equal rights.
On Qantas, British Airways, American Airways and other airlines men are BANNED from sitting next to children as they are considered an unnecessary threat.
Revealed: How BA bans men sitting next to children they don't know | Mail Online
Business policy is guided by public opinion and profit. So society brands all men as potential sex offenders. Good job equal rights.
In Australia fathers were only given equal rights to their children in 2006 yet 95% of all family court proceedings favour the mother.
In Australia each day
77 fathers separate from their child's mother.
71 of these 77 fathers will not be living with their children five years later.
52 of these 77 fathers are denied the amount of contact with their children that they desire.
Dads in Distress - Information (We lose five Australian males a day to suicide...)
52 of 77 do not have the amount they desire.
I'll tell you a story about this fact
My friend Ahmed was a stay at home dad looking after his 2 children. In 2006 he caught his wife cheating on him.
They went to family caught for custody of the kids, house and car. He received... a pay out. He got 50k cash but she got the kids, house and car and he still makes payments. The children recently got taken away from her due to her abusing them (neglect) and yet they gave them back to her instead of him even though they were happy, healthy kids. In 2008 they FINALLY gave him back the kids after they found she had beaten them.
The rule of thumb here is that even with equal rights for fathers it has to be extraordinary circumstances for courts to give the dads the kids.
Also the rate of suicide in men has tripled in 30 years, with boys, aged 15-24, (yes i still count myself a boy) kill themselves four times more than a girl the same age. Yet young girls cutting themselves is higher than men and, therefore, receives more government research grants.
Prostate cancer kills the same number of people and affects more people than breast cancer yet received 1/4 of the funding from the Australian government for research.
Ok, back to gender roles.
The affect of gender roles.
This is from my teaching philosophy and if you want the references let me know and I'll send them to you. The male gender role that is reinforced by society is killing boys. Why does the government not research into it? Why does a charity have to? Oh wait... I'm sorry. WOMEN AREN'T HURT BY IT!
Note, I'm not sexist. I also acknowledge the hardships women face. I just can't stand the injustice and the fact that so many boys (CHILDREN) are killed by it.
With the rate of young men’s, 15-24, successful suicides trebling in 30 years, young male suicide now equaling young male road fatalities and young men four times more likely to suicide than a girl of the same age, (Harrison, Moller and Bordeaux, Unknown) this has become a large focus when constructing my teaching philosophy.
Kids Help Line’s (2004) research into this area shows that boys are less likely than girls to talk about their feelings and their problems with only one in four calls to Kids Help Line being from boys. A survey of boys found that 47% of boys never or rarely talked about problems they have and of these boys 43% wanted to talk. Evidence points to the exposure of children to only one, traditional, stereotype of how men should behave and the bottling up of feelings that is associated with this stereotype.
Depression is something that effects children of both genders. Statistics vary from survey to survey but most agree that “around 4% of our children and 8 - 10% of our adolescents may have depression.” (Sawyer et al, 2000)
Women's rights. SCREW women's rights! How about EQUAL rights? Why is there so few "Equal Rights" groups and yet a bloody F*** load of women's rights groups?
Now to the women's role. I believe there is roles that women are usually part of. Society trying to discourage women of going into making the choice of these roles is disgusting. The Australian government has policies in place to "encourage" mother's to enter the work force sooner. Who cares about the kids? Throw them in childcare... it creates more jobs.
One parent should be a stay at home parent if the family chooses and this role should not be less important than another worker in the office. (Should be more so really... it's another life)
Ah screw this. I get angry every time I think of inequality so I'm just going to stop now.
