Biological and Social Gender Differences in action: a brief research into whether gender plays a role in decision making.

Essay by kingko08College, UndergraduateA, May 2006

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Gender equality is something the feminist movement has been fighting for since the early 20th century. They claim that both men and women are one and the same. No gender can be thought of as superior to another because the sex of a person does not give sufficient reasons to. Therefore, when in court, females should be tried the same as any males would, when applying to a job; gender should not be a factor etc. But should in fact both genders be thrown into one pot and said that each will respond to a situation the same way as the other? Or, could it be argued that gender in fact does play a role in how someone will act/react to a situation, and therefore should be taken into account when evaluating one's actions? To achieve these ends, we must look at the two most fundamental factors which form a human being's behavior: Biology and Society (Nature/Nurture).

With both we can also show that different genders will act differently, therefore should be an important factor when evaluating one's actions'.

When talking about gender, and their motivations, it is important to understand the gender roles their culture imposes on them. A gender role can be explained as the roles/behaviors a society will attribute to a specific gender1. For example, in our own culture (probably less today but a few decades back), females were thought of as being the most fit for child rearing, while men were more inclined to be suited for the income of the household1. This is what was expected of the specific gender of those societies. The reason gender roles are so important in defining whether gender plays a role in human behavior is that they almost give a stipulative definition of a specific gender in a given...