Women Gender and Sexuality
Introduction
Gender roles can be defined as the behavior attitudes and values considered to be appropriate by a society on the conduct of the male and female gender (Dolan). Sexism refers to the act of discriminating against women. This may be in the form of demeaning that person to make them feel inferior, for instance, referring to a grown-up woman as a girl.
There was an incident in my workplace. There was a new intern in the office, who happened to be a lady. The male employees liked sending her to go and buy for them lunch as they told each other stories. After this intern came with the food, they ate and left the utensils in the sink for her to wash and return to the canteen. The men had an attitude that this lady is an intern had to wash their dishes; they assigned gender roles that the women had to wash utensils and not men. This male employee bossed around her and didn’t want to listen to her view. They kept interrupting her. She was also exposed to sexism.
Men in my workplace are seen to have a lot of power as they boss around and command their female coworkers. The intern does not have control over this man because her getting a job in the institution is dependent on her relations with the coworkers, and the superiors’ intern is pissed at the way this man is treating her. Still, she has no option but to do as they say.
The gender expectations in this institution portray that women should submit to the men and act as their servants. There are no rules to govern the employees to make sure that there is no sexism or gender-based discrimination. Women are not listened to and are interrupted. The intern is trying to impress the coworkers (Male) to ensure she gets a job. The dressing for the ladies is supposed to be decent. The intern is told to wear long dresses to look decent in front of clients. The language used by the superiors of this intern is commanding. She is sent from office to office even though she has some work to do.
List of Works Cited
Dolan, Jill. Presence and Desire: Essays on gender, sexuality, performance. University of
Michigan Press, 1993.