Narrative Essay About Gender Essay Example

The perspective about gender is something that gets constructed by the society. The society in South Korea is a patriarchal one. Individuals are conditioned to follow the gender roles right from the childhood. The South Korean society is quite a conservative one. In retrospect, I can very well comprehend that fact that I was myself conditioned to ascribe to a specific gender role that was approved by the society.
I remember how the females were expected to function and behave in the society and among people of the family. There was a stark difference between the upbringing of male and female children. The female children were given feminine dolls and other stuff to play with. I remember how the mothers of the family used to sit with the females and do sewing and other feminine chores, while the male children were encouraged to watch sports and play in the lawns.
The boys were, thus, made to understand that they had to be sporty, while the girls had to passive and feminine in nature. Thus, the society had its own practices and institutions to impose the correct femininity and male dominance right from that very tender age. The girls were more protected by their parents, while it was fine for the boys to be mischievous and robust. In retrospect, I think this pointed to the fact that the society saw boys as stronger, while the girls were seen to be weaker in comparison. The females had to hear that they had to grow up to be beautiful, well-mannered ladies, while the boys were encouraged to go out and win the world. The very biased nature of the society with regard to girls and boys can be comprehended from the perspectives that were in vague in South Korea. Moreover, friends in school also were of the same perspective. Guys thought it was right for them to be brave and robust. They always said that the girls were tender, and needed to be protected. The girls of the school were more interested in the make-up items, Barbie dolls, and dressing up nicely to look beautiful.
In the school, we were taught fairy tales and stories where the knight in the shining armor would come to save the beautiful and tender lady. The male characters in the stories were shown to be strong, heroic and intrepid, while it were the female characters who needed protected, who were to be rescued from woes. Thus, we were conditioned to believe in the specific gender roles and attributes that the society wanted to impose on us.
Apart from this, the representation of the sexes in the media also played on the minds of the children in the South Korean society. The soaps that were aired in the television used to show the females involved in the household chores, while the males were dominant and breadwinners of the families. The movies that got released showed the dominant roles of the male characters, while the female characters were more passive in nature, and played a subordinate role in the course of actions. All these things came together to establish the parameters set by the patriarchal society regarding the gender roles, and the position of males and females in the society of the land. Like all the other people, I was also very much influenced by the conditioning of the mind by these tools in the arsenal of patriarchy.
However, with age, I came to realize how the gender roles are constructed. I realized that there should be no inequality between the two sexes. Males and females are equally capable of doing work. It is a mistake on the part of any individual to think that a female is less capacious and weak. In fact, the male chauvinists and patriarchal people of the society aim to subjugate the women folk, so that they do not come out of their shell and win over the world.
I would like to remain a South Korean person culturally, no matter where I stay. However, I would not comply with the patriarchal practices that strip the women of their equal rights in the society. I wish to have a stand of my own that does not discriminate between males and females. No gender roles should be ascribed to any person. I believe that we live in a post-modern society where there is a mesh of cultures all over owing to the globalization in the world. As such, the cultural traditions that we have grown up with might play an important role in our lives. I learnt that the father is the head of the family and the breadwinner.
Moreover, family welfare is supposed to be more important that individual desires and success. While I have revised my view of the head of the family coming to believe that anyone can be the head, I do strongly believe that the interest and welfare of the family is more important than that of an individual. During my teenage years, I came across an aged person named Thomas Dequincy. He lived in our neighborhood with his family. Thomas uncle was a very respectable fellow who inspired me a lot. I was introduced to him by my grandfather. Thomas uncle was a professor in one of the universities of the city.
He made me understand that men and women were equal in all respects. The inception of this idea in my mind made me ponder about it more with time. This helped me a lot to overcome the societal conditioning, and thus become a better person free from the clutches of gender discrimination and patriarchy.

Works Cited

“South Korea - Language, Culture, Customs and Etiquette.” Kwintessential.
Kwintessential.co.uk, n.d. Web. 19 April 2015.