Why Is It Important To Take Gender Roles Into Account When Discussing Interpersonal Relationships?

It would be difficult to argue against the impact of interpersonal interactions on daily life given their significance. It establishes how we relate to, handle, and interact with one another. According to Weber (2007), everyone should assume responsibility for looking for ways to nurture, encourage, and build personal relationships because of the critical function that interpersonal relationships play in society. The importance of interpersonal relationships should be stressed in order to maximize teamwork efficiency, achieve goals over the long term, and get the best out of individuals. This then means that interpersonal relations tend to bring up a level of interdependence on each other since people will tend to have an effect on each other’s actions. This results to a situation whereby the actions of one person have an effect on another person. However a key consideration to bear in mind is that interpersonal relationships are defined by the social factors which may be within control. One of the factors which affect interpersonal relations is gender roles.

According to Blackstone (2003) gender roles are a set of expectations that the society has about the male and female gender. It tends to define the behavior that each sex should exhibit. This then means that men and women are supposed to occupy particular roles in the society. According to William (1995), the gender roles not only apply in the family setting but also in the outside world. This could be applicable in the streets, workplace and when one is engaging in his day to day activities.

Based on this men are assumed to possess masculine role which mainly deals with leadership and women tend to possess feminine role which deals with nurturing. Blackstone (2003) further emphasized that traditionally each sex is more likely to stick towards a particular role which meant that relating with men would be different compared to relation with women. As specified by Berscheid (1995) these set of expectations, norms, behaviors and roles are highly influenced by culture which makes it hard to eliminate. Therefore the gender roles should be considered when looking into the interpersonal relationships.

Gender roles and interpersonal relationships are intertwined and they affect each other. It is a key manifestation that interpersonal relationship is a product of gender roles and that interpersonal relationship heavily depends on gender roles. One will therefore need to look into the other person’s behaviors, norms and determine expectations of his/ her neighbor so as to define how he will relate with each other. It is therefore important to establish the rules, regulations and mutual agreement which will help define the terms of engagement of the interpersonal relationship and reduce chances of conflict. (Crespi, 2003).

References

Berscheid, E. (1995). Help wanted: A grand theorist of interpersonal relationships, sociologist or anthropologist preferred. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 12, 529-533.

Blackstone, A. (2003). “Gender Roles and Society.” Pp 335-338 in Human Ecology: An Encyclopedia of Children, Families, Communities, and Environments, edited by Julia R. Miller, Richard M. Lerner, and Lawrence B. Schiamberg. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN I-57607-852-3

Crespi, I. (2003). Gender socialization within the family: A study on adolescents and their parents in Great Britain. Department of Sociology Catholic University of Milan.

Weber, M. J. (2007). The Importance of Interpersonal Relationships. International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, 2(1), 1-5.

Williams, J. (1999). Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It. Oxford: Oxford University Press