Why Are We Like This?

I've been thinking a lot about this new unit that we are doing in ERW. I've never really thought about the different gender and cultural norms that have been perpetuated throughout our society, but the articles we are reading in class really got me thinking about it.

Men and women are expected to act certain ways in our society. Men are supposed to be strong and protective beings while women are supposed to be docile and fragile. This probably evolved throughout our history starting back to the time of hunter-gatherers. Men did the hunting and women did the gathering simply because those tacks were more biologically fitting for either sex. However, these gender differences have been morphed into what they are now.

Women definitely have more expectations when it comes to how they act and speak. We're not supposed to act smarter or speak more eloquently than men because we're apparently subservient to them. Essentially, this is just another way of saying that women are not as smart as men and that we're inferior to them. Why will I, a well-spoken young woman, be inferior to the young men around me? Why are we still perpetuating these bigoted stereotypes? Why did woman's suffrage first happen in New Zealand in 1893, but did not happen for almost thirty years after that in the U.S. and a century after that in Saudi Arabia? Why are there still these differences between men and women? Why are we, the land of the free and the home of the brave, still so bigoted?