WOMEN’S AND MEN’S ROLES IN DIFFERENT CULTURES
By: Gale Goodwin Gomez, Ph.D.

STANDARD: All students will be able to identify career areas which are nontraditional for their gender.

GRADE LEVEL: Grades 12-16, Social Studies. (Suitable for students in introductory courses in cultural anthropology or in courses focusing on non-Western cultures.)

OBJECTIVE(S): Students will be able to compare and contrast men’s and women’s roles in non-Western societies with traditional sex roles in American society.

TIME: Two (or more) class periods

MATERIALS:

• Videos such as "In My Country: An International Perspective on Gender or "Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Gender Roles"
• Encyclopedia of World Cultures.

PROCEDURES:

1. To stimulate an in-class discussion on gender and societal roles, ask students what their duties and responsibilities are at home, what duties and responsibilities each of their parents has in the household, and what jobs their parents do.
2. Ask students which of these roles may be determined by gender and why and which are nontraditional for their gender.
3. Ask students to compare the roles fulfilled by their grandparents with those of their parents with their own roles to see if they can see any change in gender roles within American society across the past three generations.
4. Explain to the students that it is also possible to compare gender roles across different cultures.
5. Show the video (in part or in its entirety), and conduct a discussion about the different roles for each gender in various cultures.
6. Have students research gender roles in a particular culture (of their choice) and report their results to the class. The Encyclopedia of World Cultures is a good initial source for this activity.
7. Students write a comparison and contrast paper on their findings with respect to gender roles in the culture they have researched and in modern American society.

HINTS

Listing the duties and responsibilities of each gender on the blackboard may be! helpful in organizing and visualizing the roles for comparison and discussion.

The issue of gender role differences across cultures may be introduced earlier in the class discussion by students whose immigrant parents or grandparents have maintained gender roles from their home countries.

MATERIALS:

• Videos "In My Country: An International Perspective on Gender" (2 Volumes, 91 mm total / 1993 #SQ330 - $119) and "Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Gender Roles" (2 volumes, 60 mm each /1994 / #SQ513 - $189) available from Insight Media, 2162 Broadway, NY, NY 10024-6642, tel. (212) 721-6316.
• Encyclopedia of World Cultures. (1994). Boston, MA: G.K. Hall & Co.