Gender Roles

This week we talked about a lot of material. It has been really interesting to me because I am taking this class alongside a Family Foundations Class talking about the eternal roles of gender, and some child development classes, in which we have talked about the cognitive differences because of gender.

Gender:

We are all different, inherently. We were created as men/women far before we were born. Different does not mean bad. Each gender complements the other. In my family foundations class it was explained as two sides of a plane, or two hands on a person. We are equal but opposite (meaning different).

Prior to coming to class, we watched a documentary called "Men, Women and the Sex Difference" by John Stossel.

A few of these differences include-

Girls
-naturally more sensitive
-detail-oriented
-look for and use landmarks as a reference
-more cooperative
-relationship oriented
-have 5x more connective tissue (enabling women to make more connections)

Boys
-generally more aggressive
-spatial orientation
-naturally more competitive
-self-reliant
-task oriented
-have more grey tissue- bigger processors (enabling men to more easily solve big problems)

If we take both of these into consideration, not one way of thinking is better than the other. They are meant to be used in harmony. God created us in these ways to fulfill our divine roles, men to "preside, provide and protect" and women to "nurture." (see The Family Proclamation) This does not mean that sometimes women can't be aggressive or that men cannot be sensitive, but it is in recognizing our roles that we see why, generally, we have these characteristics.

Yes, I am a woman. I have no problem recognizing that I am not the same as a man. I do NOT want to be. I am different, but that does not mean I am not equal. We both play an equal part in God's plan.

Gloria Steinem and Gloria Allred are well-known feminists. Gloria Steinem said "We badly need to raise our boys more like our girls." I think that I agree with this statement to a point, but we are different. Instilling in boys more feelings of sensitivity and compassion can be good things and instilling in women more ambition can also be good; however, it comes with remembering that God created us differently for a reason. To try to raise children of two different genders "the same" would not only be wrong, but it most likely would not work. According to the quote mentioned in class, "If you and I are the same, one of us is unnecessary."