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The western culture is known for breaking the traditional gender roles we’ve become familiar with, but in a patriarchal society, how much change does it take to completely break traditional gender roles? A patriarchy is known as a dominating system in which men typically hold power over the society. A patriarchal society then enforces certain ideologies onto the individuals, impacting the way they portray themselves within the society. The line between who we are and who we are expected to be gradually thins as we assimilate ourselves into society, comfortably becoming the person we are in society.

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Before we are born, society’s masculine and feminine identities are already enforced. At any gender reveal party today, each individual has become accustomed to recognizing the pink colors as a baby girl and blue colors as a baby boy. Before we take our first breath, our colors are already assigned. The day we are born, we are given our assigned colors in order to match the sex we were given; therefore, the first enforcers of gender roles come from our very own families. When I was born, the very first blanket I owned was blue, representing that a baby boy was present. As I walked down the baby section at Target, colors were clearly divided to show which clothes and toys were meant for boys or girls. Pink and purple were typically together while blue and green were a common pair. Our first interactions being our assigned colors already begins to formulate a sense of identity in society. These forced colors are not because everyone agrees with traditional masculinity and femininity, but rather it conveys how society has not fully stemmed from a patriarchy society. In Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, Judith Lorber explains, “a sex category becomes a gender status through naming, dress, and other use of gender markers. Once a child’s gender is evident, others treat those in one gender differently from those in the other, and the children respond to the different treatment by feeling different and behaving differently” (Lorber). Boys receiving blue clothes and toys while girls receive pink clothes and toys unknowingly enforces patriarchal ideologies which later influences the identities of individuals.

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As we grow in a patriarchy system, we ignore the types of stereotypes pushed on us because they’re the “norm.” When we go into any public space and need to use the restroom, we are met with the decision of the men’s and women’s restrooms. While men and women have similar body structures, it has become recognizable at a young age that a stick figure with a triangle is a woman in a dress or skirt while a regular stick figure is a man. This greatly emphasizes the expectations of how women are supposed to dress in a patriarchal society while men are allowed to take on any attire and be shaped as their natural selves. Allan G Johnson touches on this subject in Patriarchy, the System as he writes, “the crucial thing to understand about patriarchy or any other kind of social system is that it’s something people participate in. It’s an arrangement of shared understandings and relationships that connect people to one another and something larger than themselves” (Johnson, 26). Johnson writes how patriarchy is a system structured in a way that emphasizes the roles of men and women with social clues that are largely invisible, but noticeable. With a simple shape, we are assigned to our restrooms the first time we use a public restroom. The rule then becomes that we can only use our assigned restrooms even if we don’t feel comfortable in our assigned space.

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The games we grew up playing are representative of the types of behaviors men and women are expected to take on later on in life. At a young age, I began to play the Call of Duty games that were typically targeted towards men. The loading screen displays a man unknown to us, looking intimidating with his various weapons. When playing the game and passing missions, there is an instance where your character is on his way to assassinate a terrorist; when achieving his goal of finding the terrorist in his chambers, he is found fully clothed with two naked women. This imagery of roles that men are powerful and need women to satisfy their sexual needs indicates the views a patriarchal system would have over times of war, impacting media representation, causing young boys to develop the same ideologies western culture has tried to stem from.

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As we progress through time as a society, representation of different groups has given rise to breaking traditional gender and sexuality norms. The LGBTQ+ community has shed light on our differences, rather, our true selves and given courage to those closeted to become comfortable with themselves in society. As someone part of the LGBTQ+ community, it felt as if there was little to no representation for my community in my high school. When I first came out to students at school, I was immediately treated differently. The girls became friendlier, but the boys became uncomfortable and often gave inappropriate jokes stemming from homophobia. In “Dude you’re a f#g?” Adolescent male homophobia, C.J Pascoe explains that the f-slur is used to reinstate masculinity in young gay men. Pascoe writes, “homophobia is central to contemporary definitions of adolescent masculinity. Unpacking multilayered meanings that boys deploy through their uses of homophobic language and joking rituals makes clear that it is not just homophobia but gendered and racialized homophobia” (Pascoe). This depicts the fixed reactions men in a patriarchal society are “supposed” to have towards another man who does not match their norms. In my predominantly Mexican neighborhood, I was expected to be machismo, or masculine. As I accustomed myself to my new identity, the line between who I should be and who I was merged into the person society grew to know.

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New Representation of Gender and Sexuality

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While men are expected to embody traits of masculinity and power within the confines of a patriarchal system, women are pressured to conform to standards of femininity and passivity. Because of the patriarchy system set in place, women are expected to represent themselves as perfect beings. The reason for this stems from the idea that men are the providers while women are the caretakers of men and children. With new representation of different body types and powerful women, light has been shed on this old idea of how a woman is expected to act and look. This evolving cultural landscape challenges the narrow definitions of femininity and highlights the complexity and strength of women beyond traditional roles, signaling a promising departure from the rigid expectations imposed by the patriarchal framework.

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In a patriarchal society, traditional gender roles are deeply ingrained from birth, influencing everything from the colors we are assigned to at birth to our assigned restrooms. As individuals grow, societal expectations shape their behaviors and identities which reinforces ideologies of masculinity and femininity. Media representation further perpetuates these roles with limited representation towards marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community; however, increased visibility and empowerment of diverse identities allows for a shift in western culture. This evolving culture allows hope for a more inclusive society, one where individuals can one day fully express their identities beyond rigid patriarchal expectations.