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Gender Roles

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Gender roles in the 21st century

Introduction
Gender roles are a set of social and behavioral norms that are generally considered appropriate for men or women in a social or interpersonal relationship. We are not sure when this practice started but pink and blue begins this lifelong process in the 21st century (Lindsey, 2005).
As my research evolves, I plan to examine gender roles in various aspects of 21st century life: workplace, relationships, parenting, voting, consumer behavior, etc. Since this is such a broad topic, my research will likely lead to a paper with a more narrow focus. For now, I've chosen references which are established articles on this broader topic. This research will likely become more focused as I develop the paper.
Origin of Gender Roles
The gender roles have evolved a great deal from the onset of the human civilization which started as hunter gathers. The males were primarily responsible to provide food, shelter and protection while the women looked after the offspring and took care of the tribe. The Functionalist perspective explains this fairly non-overlapping segregation of gender roles in the pre-industrial society.
Evolution of Gender Roles
For a considerable period of time there was little or no interaction between the different civilizations and therefore each society developed its own distinct culture and the socialization process. The local socio-economic factors, religious beliefs, legal and political factors had huge impact of the development of gender roles. In the initial years of the 21st century the agents of socialization had a very narrow, local and a limited impact. These agents were the family, peers, the school and then the workplace. However, industrialization changed all that in a number of ways. The advent of mass production and television were two agents that have had a profound and a global impact on the

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