Gender Role Stereotyping and Women’s Issues

Gender Role Stereotyping and Women’s Issues
The institutional arrangements, the values, norms and customs of the society create and sustain female role stereotypes. For example, within this socio-cultural set up, with the concept of marriage as the true destiny of a woman and with her important obligation to bear a son, the roles of wife and mother emerge as proper to women. Hence, by eulogising her motherhood, religion binds a woman to the home and to her role of creating and nurturing children.
Women play crucial roles both in the productive and reproductive activities. However, in the process of rapid economic development and social change women’s contributions have remained invisible and unrecognised within the given process of role stereotyping and traditional role expectations.
Women have been subjected to marginality in all realms of life. While these issues have remained in the society since the ages, these have come into sharp focus only with the resurgence of women’s movements and women’s studies.