Even though the guys who presented on Gender Roles in Marriage seemingly neglected to consider other races, social classes, and sexual orientations in their studies, I don't think they were as neglecting as some of my classmates perceived. In fact, I think they did a great job presenting valuable information that obviously generated a lot of (heated) class discussions and got me thinking.
The presentation included almost all graphs and other statistic visuals, which was indeed necessary for us to understand the main points of their topic, but I was and always have been very easily deterred, bored, and often overwhelmed by tons of graphs and charts. Anyway, I was able to keep myself together enough to enjoy the presentation and learn a few things about my fellow classmates. The guys' survey was an awesome idea! It was interesting to learn how the guys promoted their survey (email, arch, facebook), and even though some of the data was skewed as a result of vague or confusing questioning, it was cool to see how the majority of Juniata students perceive gender roles in marriages.
I thought it was important when Celia pointed out that surveys generally measure peoples' attitudes (not actual behaviors!) about certain things, and this survey probably was no exception.
As far as my own input on gender roles in marriage, my parents did not fulfill "traditional" or "egalitarian" gender roles. Until my parents split up when I was a senior in high school, my dad cooked dinner most of the time, except if my mom declared it a "gumbo" or "etouffe" night, in which case it was as important to attend as Christmas or New Year's dinner (it seemed and still seems like my dad's main purpose for living was to cook HUGE Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners...) My dad always got us cereal for breakfast on school days and brought it into my sister and I while we watched Scooby Doo on the couch; he made "BB" most every Saturday or Sunday, which stands for "Big Breakfast" and was either pancakes/waffles, bacon/sausage, dippy/scrambled eggs (I don't know how my sister and I managed to escape childhood obesity...) My friends always thought it was funny that my dad cooked the meals because whenever I spent the night at their houses, their moms made the meals.
Come to think of it, I guess we had some traditional family roles, too: my mom did most of the house cleaning, but was and is always very dramatic about it. My sister and I would help her out most of the time and fight over who got to clean what/where. Sometimes I would pretend to have forgotten the right way to sweep the kitchen floor because I knew my mom would grab the broom to demonstrate and end up doing the job for me...I also remember calling dibs on cleaning the bathrooms because after I scrubbed everything with chemicals I could believably fake a pretty serious headache. That's so off-topic and just revealing to everyone what a manipulative little brat I was...anyway:
My dad gardened, mowed, etc., and sometimes washed the dishes (which took him hours because he's obsessed with saving energy/water). I can remember raking leaves until I had blisters and weeding my dad's garden and digging up potatoes one summer. I also remember the day that my dad taught us how to wash dishes and clothes the summer between third and fourth grades...ugh. As my sister and I grew up, we took on more of the house cleaning and yard responsibilities, especially because my mom worked very time-consuming jobs and my dad commutes from Huntingdon to Indiana, PA as a Biology professor at IUP.
I think that most healthy families (with either heterosexual or homosexual parents) figure out which roles work best for them (within reason), and just kind of...settle. And then it either works out or it doesn't, right? Because we all have different experiences as a result of how our families settle, it seems kind of unfair for one person to judge the way another person's works.
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