Gender Schema
“A weak man can’t love a strong woman. He won’t know what to do with her”. The words of Phuckyo are the perfect examples of gender schema. Gender schema is thoughts or perceptions of specific ideas that have been filled into the minds of the society as a result of the construction of the community. The book Sexuality Now Embracing Diversity introduces the idea of whether gender roles are innate or socially constructed. In chapter 4, for instance, highlights the fact that gender roles, as well as gender identity, do not necessarily have to be biologically created. Coming to learn of the gender schema, primarily how the concepts are explained by Sandra Ben, created a new insight for me. As a result, I thought that looking deeper into its construction and the impacts it leaves on the society can be useful in understanding the gender schema.
I first came across the concept of gender schema in a magazine I was reading. Later, however, I began to read about it in class. Ideally, this is a reality in the societies that most of us live in. An excellent example of this is the masculine gender schema. Arguably, most communities expect men to be tough and not afraid of anything. Also, men are expected to take responsibility and protect his family. According to Chapter 4,“The Gender Schema becomes so ingrained that we do not even realize its power” (91). Gender schemas shape the reasoning of a community to a point where if a man doesn’t do as expected, he is deemed weak and referred to using feminine features. It gives people the power to endorse and to dismiss. Following this, some people have been left out as a result of health or mental conditions since they are deemed weak. Learning about this concept has helped me in learning more about my society.
Before learning about Gender schema, I always thought that the people who held high values about masculinity were simply patriarchs and did not allow the women to be the best versions of themselves. I, however, came to learn that most of these people grow up in these systems, and it is therefore not in their knowledge that they cannot reason outside the box. According to the social learning theory, “we learn gender system from our environment, from the same system of rewards and punishment that we learn our social roles” (90). Coming across the concept of gender schema has opened up my eyes to understand how this works and learn not to blame anyone. The most challenging part of this learning experience was realizing that many people do not know about gender schema. I was walking around the neighborhood trying to question some of the most learned people, but most of them had read it somewhere but did not see how they could relate. Explaining to these people what it meant and how to relate it to the society was quite problematic.
After learning this new concept, I came to the understanding that most of the acts of gender, such as roles and inequalities, run in society’s bloodline. As much as the fight for equality has made situations for the females better as at now, there are some aspects of inequality as well as gender roles that cannot be routed out of the society. For example, the part of men to protect their families. Arguably, this is a gender schema for masculinity. This is what the community expects of a man, and this is what the society has been expecting from a man for decades. In a nutshell, gender schemas are simply a huge part of the community, and accepting them can allow people to live in harmony.