Gender roles and stereotypes have been always attracting special attention of scholars and researchers. Women’s emancipation and society where feminism prospers made gender stereotypes less tangible, which resulted in modern women’s fighting for their rights and freedoms and keeping to an idea that men and women are equal. The end of the nineteenth century was marked by numerous Women’s Rights Movements which turned the society into what it is now. Independence of modern women is crucial for them and they are ready to prove to everyone that traditional gender role expectations do not exist anymore.
Traditional gender roles “dictate, for example, that women should not approach men for dates but that they play the most active role in nurturing a relationship once formed.” (McAnulty & Burnette 2006) And of course, traditionally, women are mothers and, unlike men, have to spend most of their time with children due to their being natural carers. (Seddon 2003) A number of images present namely this side of a woman’s identity; the photograph under consideration also presents a woman with twins who seems to be happy about her motherhood. The photograph under analysis depicts a woman in a stereotypically gendered role of a mother, as well as of a housewife, though such a depiction may cause different emotions in viewers.
To begin with, the photograph presents a gender role stereotype, attributing to a woman the role of a caring mother. Such a representation of women is more than typical, since “in general, women who are physically capable of giving birth are still expected to do so.” (Worell 2001) The problem consists in the period after the children were born, rather than in the idea of having children as such. There is hardly a man who would agree to give up his job and to turn his life into a constant circle of nappies, baby’s dummies, washing, cleaning, entertaining children, and not having enough sleep at night; but when it comes to a woman going through these activities daily, most of men take it for granted for they think that this is what the woman’s lot consists in. The woman in the photograph is an exact representation of a gender role stereotype for she looks like a caring mother who is happy about all those chores which she acquired after giving birth to her twin-girls. It is hard to determine whether she is or is not tired from these chores, but it would be fair to state that her smiling in the picture is not so frequent an occurrence, especially at those moments when she has to calm down both of her children at night.
What’s more, this photograph suggests an idea that this woman is not only a mother but a housewife as well. It is a common knowledge that a woman who stays at home with children does not have any chance to work, because children take all her time, attention, and strengths. This is the main reason why most of women avoid maternity; they are simply afraid to become chained to their house and dependent on their husbands financially (Peterson, Vásquez & Williams 2001). Thus, the photograph in question also presents social stereotypes, namely a stereotype of a housewife-mother. As a rule, “social stereotypes define cultural expectations; they are used in reasoning and especially in what is called “jumping to conclusions.” (Laurence 1999) It can be easily agreed that when seeing a young mother, any person would jump to a conclusion that she is a housewife at the same time. This adds to the “job” of a mother a range of other house chores significantly shortening the time she can spend for her own needs and explains the absence of make-up and hairdo of the woman in the photograph, which means that the lack of time lets her to take care of her children, but not of herself. This accounts for the fact that “most women do not want to go back to the time when mothers stayed home full-time with their children.” (Waldfogel 2006)
However, not everybody will see stereotypes at this picture at once. It is rather that only those people who want to find them there will succeed in this. This photograph also gives an idea that some of the women might like being mothers. The existing stereotypes make women forget about their ability to give birth to children. They join to those who fight ardently for the equality of rights and demand job opportunities for women. Feminists’ desire to fight with gender discrimination leads to the rejection of maternity and fear of women to get involved in family relations.
All they care about is that they will lose their independence and freedom of choice, though in fact, no one is going to take them away unless the women themselves will let to do this. Quite a few women think about the fact that they get a primary role in the family, the role of a primary parent, who the children count on and always consider the best. The first look at the photograph under consideration does not evoke any negative emotions; on the contrary, the picture is moving and it arouses tender emotions making the viewer to imagine a happy family with two almost identical children, the phenomenon which takes place not so often. Thus, the woman’s identity does not suffer if the gender roles are viewed from this perspective.
In sum, gender role stereotypes are widely discussed in the modern society. The photograph under analysis may be regarded as the one depicting these stereotypes for it presents a woman with children and suggests an idea that women are always associated with maternity. To some extent, the photograph also stereotypically presents gender job roles, because the “job” of a mother is closely connected with the job of a housewife. This discriminates women leaving them no time for themselves. Nevertheless, the photograph does not evoke negative emotions, which means that not all people think about stereotypes when looking at it.
References
Laurence, S 1999, Concepts: Core Readings, MIT Press.
McAnulty, RD & Burnette MM 2006, Sex and Sexuality, Greenwood Publishing Group.
Peterson, AL, Vásquez, MA & Williams PJ 2001, Christianity, Social change, and Globalization in the Americas, Rutgers University Press.
Seddon E 2003, Creative Parenting After Separation: A Happier Way Forward, Allen & Unwin.
Waldfogel J, 2006, What Children Need, Harvard University Press.
Worell J 2001, Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender, Elsevier.