Gender Roles Essay Topics
We are in Week Nine of this semester-long Academic Writing Class and it is time to begin planning for the second essay assignment. We have read three articles on gender roles and discussed them online. Actually, we practiced writing summaries of and paraphrases from the three articles. So . . . in laundry list fashion, here are the suggested topics and musings on them.
1. Discuss whether you think biological or social and cultural factors are more important in shaping gender roles. This one has promise and some interest for me. I think social and cultural factors are more important in shaping gender roles, so that would be my starting point. Finding sources on this question should be easy.
2. Examine the degree to which gender roles and expectations have changed in your culture over the last thirty years. This, too, is an interesting topic. Gender roles and expectations in the United States in 1979 compared to today. Didn't the big steps, the big changes begin in the 60s. By 1979 the radical ideas of the 60s faced reality, matured, and marched on. Would finding sources for this question be easy? No as easy as finding sources for topic 1.
3. Consider whether females or males are more restricted by conventional gender roles. The article Boys Will Be Boys by Kantrowitz and Kalb, which we read suggest that boys have a narrower horizon than girls in terms of gender roles. I have no strong feelings one way or the other on this question, but if would be fun to research and find out.
4. Focus on the ways in which you have been influenced, positively and negatively, by traditional gender roles and expectations. What comes to mind when I think about this topic is my mother dressing me in short pants when I went to grade school and how I was teased and called a "sissy." No other ideas or incidents come to mind and this point, making me wonder if I could find enough to write about on this topic.
5. Explore one of the following topics in terms of gender roles and stereotypes:
• rites of passage for girls or for boys
• women or homosexuals in the military
• the sports or toy industry
• anorexia and other eating disorders
• the body-image trade (diets, exercise fads, cosmetics, fragrance, fashion)
• a particular product of the mass media--for example, a TV program, film, magazine advertisement, music video, or children's picture book
There are several topics in this that interest me, but women in sports is the one that I would like to write about. Title IX of the 1972 Education Act states that educational institutions must provide women with equal sports opportunities that it provides for men. This landmark legislation has had profound effects on women and on sports. The combination of interest in the topic and observations of its effects would make it interesting for me Right now, this is the topic I plan to address in my essay.