Gender typecasting

[Profraine]

Something that I've noticed over that past few months is an inability for people to think that other people, when they aren't portraying their gender's stereotypical ideals, aren't seen sympathetically or at least inferior until they "fix" themselves to be more in line to "what their gender is supposed to be like".

Take, for example, someone who is more active and someone who's more passive:

- If the two people were males, the active male would be an achiever who works hard to overcome obstacles in order to make a living; the passive male would be considered someone who is weak and takes no initiative.

- Now with females, the passive one would be considered comforting, always willing to help out someone and a good housekeeper; the active female would be expendable and be considered in over her head.

now these might seem a little blown out, but I've noticed this kind of behavior with the people I work with. While a nice chunk of them are males (I work for the Navy, mind you, so 5 females in the workplace out of 50 isn't out of place), I still see a lot of gender typecasting going on at work, despite (or maybe because of) the professionalism of my workplace.

Now your thoughts:


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Links relating to the topic:
One (out of many) Dateline video proving men are helped less often than women:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-57-i...feature=relmfu

An article showing that people are less harsh on woman than men:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0525090554.htm