In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk she speaks about gender roles and how they shape society and people’s lives. She says, “Boys and girls are undeniably different, biologically. But socialization exaggerates the differences, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling process,” and although boys and girls are different we are all still humans and that means we find certain things like art or books interesting and enjoy doing certain activities like cooking or playing sports. Somehow though these activities and enjoyments have themselves become gendered. Cooking is “women’s work” and playing a sport is supposed to be more masculine. Boys feel like to be a man they cannot possibly find enjoyment in something like cooking and girls feel like to be a women they must find enjoyment in something like cooking.
Society teaches boys and girls how they should be and how they should act and what they should like, even if they want to be the opposite. Adichie said it best, “Now, imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.” Without gender roles and expectations we could all be the selves we truly want to be without the underlying sense of guilt people feel for not being the “right” kind of man or woman, even if what they are doing is what they want and it makes them comfortable and life more enjoyable for them. I believe we would all be a lot happier if gender expectations were not such an important part in the society that we live in.
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