Amy Calonge

Professor Schwartz

English 170

15 September 2022

Women’s Roles in Society

As one grows up they observe and are taught about the world, what is right and what is wrong, and from this they start building a belief system. Due to the endless number of situations a single person can go through in a lifetime, everyone has different beliefs and opinions. One of the first things we start to observe when we’re young is the people around us, how they present themselves and how they act, helping us form opinions. Over the years these beliefs are then spread to form stereotypes if widely supported by the population, such as the stereotype surrounding gender roles. Fairly recently these stereotypes have been fought against and believed to be wrong, the image provided supports and helps represent standard gender role stereotypes while the article Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Why businesses need women at the top help show why these beliefs should be changed.

The standard gender role stereotypes state women should stay at home in order to take care of the house and kids while they wait for their husbands to come home from work. The image provided was a free booklet given out to people and is one of the many old ads that represent the standard household hierarchy around the 1950s. It shows a woman standing there in nothing but an apron while waiting to serve the man, her husband, after he’s come home from work. This ad’s writing also states and lists out how to train a woman into becoming a perfect wife, serving her husband at his every need, stating things like “Teach her to: … answer “yes, dear” to any and all requests.” Showing girls from a young age that they need to focus on learning skills related to being a homemaker like cooking and cleaning instead of learning other work-related skills. Making women seem as if they’re sole purpose is to serve men and doing whatever it takes to please them, feeling as if that’s the only path they can take in life to be accomplished.

In recent times gender stereotypes are being slowly but successfully changed, more people are starting to believe women can achieve greatness outside of the home. Which has caused women to not only be more active in the labor force but better educated too. The article Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Why businesses need women at the top helps show the statistics surrounding the implication of women being more involved in companies. It states that when enterprises have inclusive business culture their achievement probabilities greatly increase. Their profitability and productivity alone increase by approximately 63 percent and there’s a 20 percent increase in overall enhanced business outcomes. Most small to large companies ranging from different skill sets also report a 51 to 66 percent improvement in business affairs when gender diversity is implied. These numbers alone show that not only does a women’s individual work improve the company but their presence also helps benefit it’s other workers productivity.

Comparing these two texts help show how much the attitude towards gender roles has changed over the last 60 years, from designated gender roles to a more open choice society. Showing how it might even improve society and the economy as a whole. Considering most businesses will go to great extremes to improve profits by even a single percentage this discovery could be groundbreaking. Demonstrating how women or any other group of people shouldn’t be discriminated against solely for being a part of a specific group.

 

 

 

Work Cited

“Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Why Businesses Need Women at the Top.” Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Why Businesses Need Women at the Top – InfoStories, International Labour Organization , Sept. 2019, https://www.ilo.org/infostories/en-GB/Stories/Employment/beyond-the-glass-ceiling#introduction.

Train Your Wife. 1950. Accessed 15 Sept. 2022.