(January 15, 2016 at 9:34 am)Ben Davis Wrote: Yes, gender stereotypes should be challenged because there are institutionalised harms associated with them (e.g. misogyny, domestic abuse, child abuse, homophobia, transphobia).
I'd like to point out that gender stereotypes was not magically imposed by someone. These stereotypes(or rather characteristics) were formed as a result of thousands of years of evolution.
For example:
Quote:Personality traits —
For example, women are often expected to be passive, loving and caring, while men are usually expected to be aggressive, protective and dominant.
The reason women are inherently passive is because of their relative physical weakness when compared with men, in an world without laws a women being blunt to a man will usually end bad. The loving and caring characteristics are because females are usually the ones that breast feed the child which creates an intimate relation with a mother and her child.
The aggressive nature of men are not because of a stereotype. It's because of their relative higher testosterone in their body which attributes to aggressiveness, protectiveness and dominance. This helped men, in the old times to fend off other ill-intended males from harming their mate and children.
I guess my point is, these characteristics are not a result of gender stereotyping, these characteristics were formed as a result of thousands of years of years lived in the wild and in the society. So is it really smart to challenge them?
