women studies blog

What was most interesting for me was learning about how gender is a learned behavior
and thinking about whether there is anything inherently wrong with pushing the younger
generation to subscribe to certain behavior of their own sex. I believe that even without
teaching children to behave in a certain way, they would naturally gravitate towards
behavioral tendencies of their sex— it is purely biological, on some level. One
fundamental biological difference between males and females is testosterone to
estrogen balance; in adult males, testosterone levels are 7 to 8 times greater than
level founds in females. As a result, males have greater potential for muscle
development, which would naturally allow them to be more physically dominant
and “aggressive”. As Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory suggests, species take
advantage of their dominant traits in order to survive. In the stone ages, in order to
survive, men would take care of the hunting not because they were taught to be
violent and aggressive, but rather their biological characteristics pushed them in
that direction. While men were off doing those violent activities, what were the
women doing? Taking care of the babies at home because they were more suited
for that role, and because it is biologically necessary for them to provide nutrient
dense breast milk for their childrens’ survival. In our current society, does the media
push unnecessary gender norms upon people? Sure they do, but I believe it would
be incorrect to believe that gender roles were the sole product of television
advertisements. Many gender roles were resulted from biological traits written
in our DNA.