CHANGES IN GENDER ROLES

This report has been compiled on interviewing ten of the 5th year English students in the Oviedo Official School of Languages. Opinions have been attended to show, using six different indicators, how gender roles have changed over the last ten years.

The first part of the report is about the number of working women, and the kind of jobs they do. Overall there has been an increase in the percentage of working women. All the people surveyed, no matter what gender, agreed about this. On the other hand, the vast majority of males and females said that very little change has occurred in job type, and women continue to choose different kinds of jobs than men.

Housework and child care have also been considered. In this case, about 60% of women think that men’s commitment is at the same low levels as before or has increased slightly. Men agree, in similar percentages, when it comes to housework, whereas their perception about childcare varies, thinking that things have changed significantly during this period of time.

Findings on leisure time and topics of conversation conclude that all of the people interviewed agree that men and women spend their free time in different ways. Other than that, most of this people think also that topics of conversation have not changed significantly.

All in all, the survey suggest that during these ten years the most significant change in gender models is related to the rising percentage of working women, followed by significant, (although not too significant in women’s opinion), changes in men’s commitment to housework and childcare. Leisure activities and topics of conversation seem to remain very similar.

Manuel

Firstly, in relation to household chores and children care, the vast majority of people agreed men are, nowadays, more willing to share responsabilities with his partner, although the answers were different depending on the age of those polled (older ones defined that change as an amazing progress, while young people were more inconformist).

On the other hand, talking about work, it was generally felt that the porcentage of women workers has increased steadily. However, a significant minority said that the messures done were insufficient to solve this problem.

Thirthly, everyone coincided in the fact that, concerning to social skills, women had won in self-confident and were, in general, more independent than men, although, it is important to point out that men have improved talking about their feelings and emotions, according to many of those interviewed.

In conclusion, it seems that society gets better and gender roles change with it, making easier to interact with the opposite sex and becoming weaker the idea of “men are from Mars and women are from Venus”.

The first question was about sexism in the office and it was generally felt that there is less than before.

In contrast, the answers obtained when asked if men earn more money than women for the same job were controversial. The vast majority of females said that they earned less than men and they did not understand the reason. The men justified this saying that women have just joined the job market , leave their jobs first and are less likely to work full time because they need time to take care of their children.
Many of those interviewed agreed with the idea of fathers staying at home after having a baby and the answers were similar when we asked about men staying at home taking care of children and doing the household chores. The reasons given for this were that fewer women opt to remain at home and let their partner be the economic suporter of the family because they want to have a piece of the action too.

Almost all the people said men are less interested in people, they are less empathetic. Even so they need to feel they are indispensable.

In conclusion it seems that we are in the right way to obtain the equal rights.

The first part of the survey dealt with male attitudes at home. The vast majority of the women interviewed said that men didn’t talk about their problems whereas men disagreed. It was generally felt that men spend much more time doing housework than in the past but ‘It isn’t enough’ said women.

The second part of the survey outlined social life. Well over 80% thought that men and women spend leisure time in different ways while a very insignificant number felt that how you spend your free time depends on your hobbies and not on your gender. Seemingly, male and female have completely different topics of conversation with friends. Male talk about sports, cars and politics while female prefer talk about books, fashion or their children.

Almost all the people interviewed said they believed women are more self-confident and independent than some years ago. Even so all the males in the group thought that women still feel guilty about everything, all the time.

In conclusion, the survey suggests that although the traditional gender roles have changed in the last 20 years, there is still a lot to do.

Apparently, the majority of the people agree that women are able to cope with the same as men, however, it’s very difficult for them to reach the peak in their jobs. In addition, there are now more women in the university than men, which show that women’s role has to change more in the next years so that it would be common to see a women as a boss of a big corporation.

But we can’t avoid talking about a small minority, who are a hangover from the past, and still think about women as people who should be at home, cleaning, cooking, looking after children and being pregnant from time to time. And when they are flirting with a woman, of course, they must be who ask them out on a date.

To my mind, the society has to face a big deal, which is to give a better education for young people because this is the key to break the rules and the gender roles. There are people thinking in that way because at home or in the school or even on the television, they have picked up these ideas since they were children. Of course men and women are differents in many ways, but this is not a problem for women to be in the same place or to have the same rights as men.

To sum up, education is the problem and the solution. It’s time for Spanish society to be more open minded and to let women show who they are and where they can be instead of saying it to them.

The porpose of this report is to show the findings of a survey done about the changing gender roles in our society. The information was taken mainly for a group of people aged between 20 and 40 in Oviedo. The fact that almost all the people interviewed were women could indicate that the conclussions are not relevant enough. Here are some data.

The vast majority of the interviewed people agree with the idea that fortunately there is less sexism in the office nowadays than there used to be but there are still some differences dealing with economic or responsible aspects mainly.

According to ecconomy, a very small number of women sustain the idea of being paid exactly the same as men, apart from people working for Gobernment in one way or another. It’s generally felt that men earn more than women.
Apart from that, the older females questioned declare that very few men would accept the idea of earning less money than their patterns. They explain that men could feel inferior. On the contrary, the men and young ladies ( here we have the change) don’t agree with this assumption.

Dealing with the idea of staying home looking after children and doing the housework, in case it’s no worth to go out to work, nearly the 100% of the men (only 2o% of the total) think that they would happily accept while only the half of woman questioned can see men developing efficiently those tasks. Rather surprisingly, none of the men under studio know a close male friend putting into practice this proudy (self proud) activity.

As a conclusion, we can say that the differences exposed in this survey are more connected with ages and generations than with gender. So we can say that with the help of time, THINGS ARE CHANGING.

Yolanda Álvarez Duarte

This report shows the findings of a survey into male and female tendencies in their social life. The information was collected from a group of 10 students of English as a second language aged 18 – 45 at Oviedo official School of Languages. Students were asked to answer a short list of questions and answers were written down by the interviewer.
In the first place, the survey considered the attitudes to friendship and relationships. It was generally felt that viewpoints of social interactions depended on gender. A significant number of the males interviewed admitted that they would not talk to a friend about personal feelings, while most of the female students reported that they would share everything with their close friends. In addition to this, the vast majority of women interviewed considered that they would not ask a man out on a date. However many of male students reported they would prefer to take the initiative in relationships.
Secondly, the group was asked to give an opinion about leisure time linked to gender roles. About 80% of women stated that they would prefer to spend their free time in a relaxing way. In contrast, nearly all the male students said that they would prefer to practise sports in their spare time. Most of the students from both sexes considered that hobbies and personal interests depended on gender.
A very significant number of people interviewed stated that the reasons of these differences between sexes could lie on the education that they had. According to theses students males and females were taught to act different since they were born. They all admitted that males and females were not expected to act equally, which influenced on the choices they made.
To conclude we can take out from this survey that social behaviour is undoubtedly related to gender. It seems that women and men have not the same concept of social relations or activities since they have not been brought up in the same way.

To start with 84% of the respondents assured that there’s a lot of sexism in the office, but pointed out that it has diminished with the passage of time.
A very small number of people answered there’s no sexism nowadays.

Rather surprisingly the vast majority of the men interviewed said that a woman boss is stricter than a man boss. They justified it by saying that a woman boss has to show she can do the job as well, or even better, than a man so she tends to be more bossy and stricter. In contrast a small percentage of women said that a woman boss is stricter than a man boss.

The question “Does the money a woman earns affects the couple?” was one of the most conflicting. Men said that the money their wife earns doesn’t mean a lot, however almost all the women interviewed said that the amount of money they earn was the reason of many arguments between the couple, because the man wants to keep intact the role
of head of household.

The last but not the least important question was that if women were more self-confident than men. Most of the women interviewed said they were less self-confident than men just because they were realistic. They said men need to be more self-confident for not feeling lower. An insignificant number of people answered women were more self-confident because of the interior strength that leads them to be first in line.

In conclusion, the survey suggest that there’s still a lot of differences between men and women but this is about to change. Our population is evolving so fast that in a couple of decades men and women will be the same. While I was doing the survey I discovered there’s a lot of people living in the past. This is because most parents of the people whom I have interviewed have experienced the era of the Franco regime.