Final Year Project

Project Title

Gender Roles and Conformity

Description

For my research paper, my goal was to understand how gendered identities are created and the factors contributing to their prevalence. In order to do this, I looked at the initial construction of gender and then explored different ways in which gender roles are reinforced such as primary and secondary socialization, cultural norms and expectations, cognitive and anatomical differences through neuroscience studies used to justify that because men and women are built differently, they are pushed into different career paths and roles. Finally, I looked at the impact of media on gender, the individual struggles of conformity and why people conform despite not wanting to. My conclusive argument was that the emergence of gender roles and their social pervasiveness falls under devised controlling strategies with political and economic motives to coerce and control individuals and perpetuate a systematic and exploitative divide; and that conformity restricts the human mind. I further stress upon the need of a world of without these extreme dichotomous gender roles. I am also creating a visual representation of the struggles of conformity.