Romantic Implications

• Muslim children are not allowed to touch members of the oppo­site sex. No relationship between males and females may even be implied.

• Asian children often experience cultural conflict when they are asked to hold hands with members of the opposite sex.

Inequality

Mae has been teaching nursery school for years and has made the following discovery—the Japanese mothers in her school always have something sweet in their sons' sandwiches. Even if it is a fried-egg sandwich, there is jelly rolled in it. The same parents pack different lunches for their daughters—without the sweets. Mae thinks this is unfair. Japanese parents begin early on to demonstrate differences in expectations for boys and girls. Boys are treated differently—bet­ter—than girls, and that is accepted. Mrs. Wakematsu, mother of twins Peggy and Henry, exempli­fied the differences in treatment. Mrs. Wakematsu sweetened only her son's sandwich. She trimmed off Henry's bread crusts, but not Peggy's. She addressed her twins differently, too. She spoke to Peggy as if she were older than Henry, babying him more. Unlike Henry, Peggy was expected to be her mother's helper. If Henry left his sweater at school, Peggy had to go back and get it. Peggy had to carry her own and her brother's lunch box. When Mrs. Wakematsu came to pick up the children, Henry would often crash into her, grabbing her leg, whereas Peggy approached her mother more tentatively. Peggy never received the same affection and was never indulged like her brother. The Wakematsu family may be an extreme example. Nonethe­less, it demonstrates how parents teach children about gender roles. Naturally, as newcomers become more Americanized, expec­tations for women will change.

A strong son-preference exists in India. Male babies are given more food than female babies, and so males are more likely to survive. As they grow up, girls are less likely to be sent to school. Females often have little or no say in whom they will marry. Child marriage (under the legal age of 18) is frequent, especially in villages. A dowry is usually paid by the bride's family to the groom's family A serious social problem has arisen in India in recent years in the form of "dowry deaths," which occur when the bride's family agrees to pay an exorbitant dowry. If her family defaults on the payment, the groom's family mistreats the new wife. On some occasions, they burn her to death in a supposedly accidental kitchen fire (by drenching her with kero­sene). Ironically in recent decades, technological development has increased sexist practices. Once the medical equipment for amniocentesis became widely available, it was used to determine the sex of unborn children in India so that female fetuses could be aborted. As a result, many more male babies are born than are female babies.

• Ethnic groups do not all perceive gender roles in the same way. Some encourage equality of the sexes, and some do not.

• Unequal treatment of sexes begins early in life. Parents instill dif­ferences in subtle ways, including what they pack in their chil­dren's lunch boxes.

Child Custody

• In divorce proceedings, Middle Eastern men usually assume they are the most appropriate parent to have custody over the children.

• In most Middle Eastern marriages, the father's opinion will more likely prevail, since he is considered superior to his wife.

Home Alone Together

• A traditional unmarried Latina should not be alone in the com­pany of a man.

In conclusion I’d like to say that gender discrimination is an important problem throughout the world. In the United States a survey of men and women showed that most women were quite angry about being treated as inferiors by men. Most of the female respondents in the survey could cite specific examples of discrimination. In comparison, men were not interested in talking about their discrimination against women. The men acknowledged that gender discrimination occurred, but they were not bothered by it. Women in the United States receive an average salary that is three-fourths that of men. In other words, if a man and a woman both perform the same job, the male is paid $1.00 while the female is paid 75 cents. Stated another way, women with a university degree are paid the equivalent of what men earn who have only a high school degree. The feminist movement in the United States, inspired by the Civil Rights movement and using some of its strategies, seeks to end gender discrimination.

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