Gender and sexuality: concepts and relationships

Gender and Sexaulity

There is presently much controversy regarding sexuality and gender roles as a whole, considering that the contemporary society still has trouble recognizing women and men as being equal. Both men and women are provided with instructions meant to have them get a better understanding of their roles during their early lives. With mothers being the main caretakers across children's development period, it only seems natural for them to feel a stronger connection to their daughters. In contrast, boys are encouraged to develop their personal identity and to comprehend how and why they are different. Many people prefer to believe that society has evolved greatly in the recent decades and that it would be absurd for someone to consider men to be any different women when it comes to their role in the modern-day community. However, there is substantial evidence pointing toward the belief that individuals everywhere continue to discriminate on account of gender.

The masses incorrectly tend to assume that gender discrimination consists primarily of cases involving men putting across biased thinking in regard to women. However, there have also been numerous reports dealing with men being discriminated on account of their gender. Women have traditionally been discriminated and considered to be inferior to men, thus the reason for which many communities presently have trouble understanding that females are actually not different from males when concerning their social status. In addition to being treated poorly by society, women living several decades ago were also seriously impeded as a result of being denied access to various levels of education. It was not until the recent centuries that matters came into public attention and women started to form feminist movements meant to upgrade their social status. Governments from around the world issues a series of acts (such as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1968 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963) meant to prevent discrimination from ever happening on account of gender. Even with the fact that these respective acts have had limited success, it would seem that the general public still has much to go through in order for it to acknowledge that gender should not stand as a reason for differentiation (Gender Discrimination - Further Readings).

Wages are a particularly contentious subject when discussing gender discrimination, as many employers were reported to either favor male employees because they identified with them or to favor female employees because they felt attracted to them. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 appears to be ineffective when considering that it has not been successful in making it possible for some women to be paid on account of their abilities. Such topics have been especially under public attention during the last few years and large corporations were considered responsible for discriminating women. The 2010 case involving Walmart and several female employees suing it on account of them being discriminated because of their gender is particularly interesting. Whereas the trial began in the early 2000s, matters escalated across time and thousands of employees have gotten actively engaged in solving their problems with Walmart. The company is likely to lose billions of dollars out of this enterprise (Goudreau).

It is difficult to determine when a person is being discriminated because of his or her gender. Many tend to mistake casual actions for discrimination, this happening because people have gotten used to have their behavior governed by stereotypes. It is actually hard for someone today not to associate particular matters with things that he or she has seen in other people. Society needs to understand that women are not bad drivers and that it is not normal for men to financially support women.

The feminist movement mainly relies on the concept of a woman and everything that it stands for. Feminists are not necessarily fueled by their desire to have society understand that they are capable to perform a great deal of actions that are considered characteristic to men, as they also want to have people learn that women are different and that they should be supported in expressing their nature freely. Feminists want the masses to comprehend how women should be considered mothers similarly to how men should be considered fathers. They want women and men to be presented with equal rights and opportunities.

It would be wrong to believe that feminists are solely guided by the concept of "abstinence-until-marriage" when considering their position in regard to sex. The conservative community does indeed consider that sexuality is best represented by marriage. In contrast, women simply want their rights to be recognized by society as a whole and promote the belief that everyone should be free to express himself or herself freely as long as this does not harm others. Infidelity is yet another divisive topic when concerning gender discrimination, as people are often inclined to think that it is less serious when a man cheats than it is when a woman cheats. One would virtually have to be ignorant to consider that there is any difference between these two situations.