Men Should Do This.. Women Should Do That...

After reading the Gender Stereotypes and Roles article by Susan Basow, the origin of gender roles seems more apparent to me now.  In the article, the writer establishes the four different types of societies and how women and men’s ideas about gender shifted because of the work required in each changing society.   In foraging societies, which are hunting and gathering societies, women and men’s work was about equal.  Men were hunters and women were gatherers.  Women were able to contribute greatly to the food supply; however, the men in the society still had the more respected job as a hunter because it was considered more dangerous.  I disagree with this because it was just as dangerous for women to have children in order to keep the society going.  Horticultural societies appear to be somewhat male-dominated but there is some equality to the women.  The writer states that agrarian societies are very patriarchal because men tended to dominate the division of labor.  I agree with this statement because this restricted women’s behaviors and lives.  They contributed less to the food supply because they were thought to have less strength then a man.  There were no jobs created for women in agrarian societies because it was thought that men and their sons could be the only ones doing the work.  This lead to an even bigger problem with industrial societies because women are written off as just housewives and care takers.  This is the opposite in my household because my mother is dominating at work (as well is my step-dad) but my step-dad fills in the role as care taker and cook when my mother cannot do so.  There are no gender roles in my family which is why I believe that biology, in a sense, is overrated because a woman can do a men’s job and do it well.  She just has to be able to work and accept/enforce the stereotypes placed against her.