Gender Roles

While there are many competing theories surrounding the development of gender roles, this one fact is incontestable and unavoidable: men and women are socialized differently. There is not yet enough conclusive evidence to determine how large of a role biology plays in creating the gendered psyches, but we can draw conclusions about how social mores assist in instilling masculinity and femininity into our culture. The following pages will explore how U.S. culture affects the socialization of its males.
The male infant born in the United States of America is born into a legacy of masculine expectations. From pre-industrial times until the 1960’s, the “good provider” role of fathers dominated family ideology. Although all family members contributed to subsistence activities during pre-industrial times, men provided the dominant source of authority within the household. When the economy of the U.S. moved outside of the household during the industrial revolution, men’s family ...