| Summary: | Various factors come into play when discussing how people play their gender roles as assigned by society and/or culture. For example, women are expected to play the roles of the wife, the mother, take care of children etc as defined by tradition. However, in modern society, it has become common for women to take on what used to be considered masculine roles, e.g. attaining higher education, having a career, and basically doing away with the necessity of having a man provide for her. In spite of this, there is a societal pressure for women to continue to conform to roles ranging from the nurturing mother (in pro-family advertisements) to the sex object, the object of male desire (as seen in men's magazines).
Ironically, it is reinforced even in media targeted at a female audience (in women's magazines, advertisments for beauty products etc.), putting the pressure on women to be desirable to men at all times. Such gender constructs lead to behaviour patterns that tend to disadvantage women, and women find themselves socially obligated to perpetuate these constructs, even if they find themselves at odds with their own personal interests and welfare, e.g. giving up a career to raise her children, or working the “second shift” (the phenomena of working women having to play their domestic roles after work, i.e. cooking, household chores) This is seen as normal, and even if women might resent these roles they play, the way in which women are socialised in the society could lead them to perpetuate this vicious cycle.
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