By traditional gender roles, many people presume that the man works outside the home to earn money, while the woman takes on the roles of mother and housewife. (Throughout most of human history, this wasn’t actually the norm, as women also had to work to ensure the family’s survival in addition to managing household chores.) Such gender roles make the woman dependent on the man for many of her basic needs, while also adding extra pressure on the man to earn money. Such imbalance often leads to loss of respect and trust, and can easily result in power abuse, including physical abuse.
The woman may feel like a slave, working all day without a salary and perhaps enduring disrespect and abuse on top of that. She may feel infantilized, imprisoned in her home, cut off from opportunities to explore her potential. The man might resent the financial imbalance and may dismiss the value of the woman?s work.
The imbalance in power and opportunities in traditional gender roles can lead to emotional and communication problems even if both parties are well-meaning. For example, the woman may resort to nagging, manipulation, or playing the victim due to her lack of other means to exert influence. On the other hand, the man may respond with dismissal, disrespect, or withdrawal, feeling he lacks an equal partner.
The problems extend further in traditional patriarchal societies, where women are usually poorly educated because of the assumption that they will remain homemakers. This lack of education is then used as an excuse to label women as less capable and treat them as second-class citizens. Uneducated women are less likely to be stimulating role models to their children, too.
Both men and women are often severely limited in their choice of partner in traditional societies, where there are few opportunities to explore relationships and compatibility before marriage. Furthermore, they may find it difficult to leave an unhappy marriage.
The influence of traditional gender roles on the emotional health of children
Children born into such marriages often witness exploitation, power games, emotional coldness, disrespect, and various forms of abuse. They are likely to model parts of those behaviors. Witnessing traditional gender roles, little girls are often taught that they cannot fulfill their dreams unless a man is willing to do so for them. Little boys are taught to be competitive, aggressive, and power-hungry to be able to support multiple people with their earnings. They might also learn that it’s normal that they have more freedom and less responsibilities than girls.
Furthermore, children are likely to take for granted the parent who is with them all the time (mother), while idealizing the parent who is absent or distant most of the time (father). They might resent the mother?s constant struggles to discipline them, while admiring the father?s financial power and independence. Since adult people see the world through the lens of what they experienced in their childhood, they are likely to project their feelings for their mother and father onto women and men in general.
In traditional patriarchal families, it?s also very common that a lonely, unfulfilled mother will turn to a son as a substitute partner (Emotional Incest). The son may feel privileged, but in the same time pays a high price by losing his own identity and boundaries. Such a mother can be very jealous of her daughter in law, and may try to keep her son?s love for herself. She might also, sadly, project her own self-disdain and self-hate onto her own daughters and even granddaughters.
When can traditional gender roles work?
Can traditional gender roles ever work to the benefit of all? I have seen it work well a few times, but more often, I have observed the negative outcomes described above. For such a relationship to succeed, the man must genuinely respect the woman?s work and consider it equally valuable as his own. The woman must genuinely enjoy housework and childcare and have few if any other ambitions. The man should feel good with the responsibility of being the sole provider. The woman must be okay with having no financial security of her own and relying on her partner for money. Both partners need to possess excellent communication skills and maintain these preferences over decades.
In modern society, the man also needs to have an above average income to be able to support both his wife and children on a single salary. Otherwise, women who are not satisfied with their husbands? income may put pressure on them to earn more, which can become a source of continuous strife. Some men with low income can feel inadequate, or even unworthy of getting married if their salary is not high enough.
While some families may succeed with mutual respect and genuine consent to traditional gender roles, they are the exception rather than the rule. Most often, these dynamics become a breeding ground for resentment, perpetuating outdated gender norms and forced dependency.
IMO, those who seek to limit women to housekeeping and childcare, should also seek to limit men to heavy physical work only, so at least there is equality in frustration and undeveloped potential, and everybody can live happily ever after in an eternal stone age.
Read on:
Who Has It Worse: Men Or Women?
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