"3. In all cultures, gender roles exist. In most cultures, more than one gender role exists for each sex. So for example, in some cultures being a mother is considered to be a different gender role to being a female without children. In other cultures, males may choose to take one of a range of different gender roles which are based on their sexual orientation. In other cultures, youngest sons are assigned a different gender role to older sons. We can look at examples from India or Polynesia."
(Almondpudding).
These are not gender roles, Almondpudding. They are roles associated with different functions in society, associated with hierarchy or property or the ritualistic needs of various societies. It really doesn't matter what obscure societies think of gender or what roles are assigned or chosen by individuals functioning in those societies and cultures. Here is a quote from none other than Stevie Nicks, on gender:
"When you grow up as a girl, the world tells you the things that you are supposed to be: emotional, loving, beautiful, wanted. And then when you are those things, the world tells you they are inferior: illogical, weak, vain, empty." This is how gender works in the west.
Gender roles are inextricably linked to biology in our society. The physical role associated with motherhood is different from the gendered position of mothers. There is conception, gestation, birth and lactation involved in the physical sense. Parenting is a role both men and women can do, and even women and men who have never physically borne a baby can perform it and perform it well. However, there is a gendered expectation that a woman will parent, will sacrifice a career and opportunity to earn an income in favour of parenting and will never again make the same money or have the same opportunity for promotion once the physical role has been performed. This is pure advantage taking on the part of a class seeking to keep money and power in its own hands. Gender in the west has very significant political overtones therefore.
Being expected to wear a skirt and keep your legs together when sitting in school is a gender role. Being expected to make coffee for meetings is a secretarial role. Being expected to look thin and professional, made up and coiffed and alert and smart, and yet to contribute in a meeting in a non-confrontational way is a role associated with gender when a women is an executive or a lawyer or engineer, or whatever. Women in those positions can't sprawl all over their chairs, sit with their arms raised and hands clasped behind their heads while speaking at meetings, scratch themselves, etc. Additionally, and very importantly, the men are taking home more in their paycheques than the women are. This is all gender.