Originally Posted by
Shinra1
I don't believe in gender roles, but they're widespread and historically constant. They're useful to analyze because the value of a role's labor is a good indication of the value of the individual fulfilling the role. What this difference in the value of men's and women's labor amounts to is a discrepancy in the types of laws that protect female bodies vs. male bodies, a prioritization of male-similar genitalia in sex-assignment surgery for intersex persons, a discrepancy in wage labor rates between men and women for the same work, a discrepancy in the number of women and men participating in powerful political positions. A system of systems: medical, financial, legal, political -- all work harder to empower men and oppress women, than they do to empower women and oppress men, although, of course, there is some of each.
On a personal level, the things I've witnessed are, for example, the way a woman is more likely to be ignored in conversation, the way that a little boy is rewarded and encouraged in class by the teacher more generously than a little girl is, the way that my female-bodied friends find it more difficult to get a raise than their less capable male counter parts, the way that in my field, women I know have been habitually sexually harassed by their almost all male bosses. I'll cut it short here for space.