> On Thu, 11 Apr 1996 schwaja3@wfu.edu wrote:
>
> > I am writing my paper on rape and domestic violence from an interactionist
> > perspective and it is clear that men's roles are defined as well. "Masculinity"
> > is one of the major reasons that men beat their wives or rape their girlfriends.
> > Sad, but true.
> >
> So the question remains....Can we change the way roles are defined? I
> mean rapid changes of the construction of roles. How can this be done?
> betsy
>
Besty-
I don't know that we can make any drastic changes in the way we
view the different roles. If you stop and think about it it's amazing
how strongly we buy into it all from the very beginning. For example,
think about the way people dress their infants. Little boys and little
girls look the same at that age, and God forbid if somebody ever thought
that your little girl was a little boy. So what do they do? They put
little pink headbands on the girl ( even though she has no hair ) and
confine her in an uncomfortable dress that makes play impossible. These
infants are already getting the message that girls are supposed to just
sit there and look cute, while the boys are supposed to go and play. The
roles are just so far ingrained into our subconscious that we don't even
realize how much they effect everyting we do. Just a thought.