The Changing Role of Women in the Society

The Changing Role of Women in the Society
The existence and interaction of people in society are influenced by many factors. Different cultures have different beliefs about values that are core to their existence. However, one of the critical subjects that are common in the various communities is the changing role of women or the female gender in the society. The various tasks that are assigned to different genders are in a major way influenced by the socialization process in the society. Socialization may be described as the process through which children who are born without a culture are transformed into people who share the same values as the society they are born in (Stoetzer, Oliver R, and Richard T. Schaefer, 85). Even though socialization is an essential process in the society that shapes the values of individuals, the various values and cultures that people are socialized in have been rapidly changing all over the world. A closer analysis of the changing roles of women will be used to depict this change in the paragraphs that follow.
To establish the views of the people about the role of women in the society, I conducted several interviews. My first interviewee was a Hispanic male, Jesus who was in his late fifties. He was a man who had been educated to the university level and had a good white collar job as a banker. Jesus was raised in a very traditional family where they believed that the man should be the sole provider of the family while the woman was supposed to be concerned about the welfare of the family by performing house chores and raising the children.

Even though education had challenged his view about gender roles, he still had a lot of pressure from his family to marry a Hispanic girl who believed and followed the traditional values of their community and at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. However, at present, Jesus who has three children who are all female shares a different point of view than before. All his children are educated to the university level and have jobs. He currently lays a lot of emphasis on the fact that women should free themselves from the traditional dogma that limits their potential to excel in other key roles in the society such as leadership, participating in providing for their families, having successful careers, just to mention a few.
The second interviewee was a married African American woman, Dorcas, in her early forties who is a church minister. Dorcas’s husband is not a church minister but rather a successful businessman who runs a chain of small retail businesses. Even though the couple comprises of two leaders in their respective separate fields, it still presented an interesting scenario where useful data on our subject of study could be collected. Both Dorcas and her husband have been educated to the college level. In most settings, the majority of religious leaders are of the male gender. This may be attributed to the fact that in most religions and their teachings, men are viewed as more suitable for leadership positions. However, according to Dorcas, this is not necessarily true. Despite her conviction that women are equally gifted for the task and the various examples she brought forward of exemplary female church ministers, Dorcas still admitted that she had been severally criticized by people about her interpretation of the scripture. Also, some people had even suggested that it would have been a more acceptable image if her husband was also a minister since the leadership position she had in her congregation cast a shadow on her husband’s position. Despite this, Dorcas seemed confident that both her husband and she were comfortable in their current positions and roles.
Even though the position of women in the society is changing rapidly, the society is still partially entangled with the dogma of the traditional position that women held in the community. This means that the participation of women in various fields that were previously dominated by men is slowly being accepted. Despite this, there are still positions in the society the majority of the population implies should be left for men (Texas State University, 1). Some of these include powerful leadership positions in the government such as the presidency, where women are rarely elected or appointed to take. However, the affirmative action being legislated in most countries around the world stands out as a guarantee that change is inevitable in the current dynamic world.
Work Cited
Stoetzer, Oliver R, and Richard T. Schaefer. Students’ Guide to Accompany :sociology an
Introduction, 1st Canadian Edition [by] Richard T. Schaefer. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1996. Print.
Texas State University. The Changing Role of Women. Taxes State University Website, 2002.http://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2002/10/roleofwomen102102.html