Is gender inequality a product of nature or nurture?
From my point of view, gender inequality is more of nurture than nature. There are many things that society imposes on us. To begin with, when a child is born, people believe strongly that a girl child should dress on pink and purple cloths while a boy should have blue. Furthermore, the way people take to boys even at young age already signifies authority. There are a lot of things that when people do, others looked at them as abnormal because of the way society looks at them.
Let’s begin from the way new born babies are being talked to even in the hospitals. People talk to boys in a hard and commanding voice, calling them soldiers indicating that they are supposed to be strong and fighters. But when it comes to girls, they are even handled with care and talked to in a soft and caring voice and are called princess demonstrating the fact that they are supposed to be protected at all time. According to our society, boys are supposed to be tough. If a boy comes out and starts crying too much, they will say she is a woman and not a man that he is supposed to be. This demonstrates the way society starts molding gender inequality with kids from birth.
Also, in some societies, certain things are only supposed to be done to men and not women. For example, in my country Cameroon, fire fighters are only supposed to be men and not women. If a woman finally succeeds to become one, everybody will like at her as if she is regretting the fact that she was a woman. Men will try to challenge her and talk to her in a dreadful way. When we as kids witnessed all these happen, and when we grow up instead of us questioning the inequality, we just accept it and the cycle continues.
On the other hand, some schools of thought believe that gender inequality is a product of nature. They said men because of their testosterones turn to behave the way they do. Some goes ahead to talk about the influence of hormones. To a greater extent, nurture is a product of gender inequality rather than nature.
I totally agree that this is based more on nurture than nature, but at the same time society has a big impact on the way we as human beings, male or female, are supposed to act. It seems like from the time we are born until now we are expected to act and have the same roles as we did then. The male and female roles never change.
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