Differences between stereotypes and gender roles

We still have a long way to go, despite the great social advances achieved by the feminist movement and sexual diversity movements. Thus, although both stereotypes and gender roles have been changing and adjusting to the social demands of our time, it is still necessary to make them visible and understand them, to transform them.

However, what are we referring to when we talk about stereotypes and gender roles? They are the same? In this article we are going to explain the differences between the two and identify some ways to dismantle them in our daily lives.

Stereotypes: what are they?

We can understand stereotypes as cognitive constructs built from characteristic attributes associated with a social group. In this way, stereotypes can be both positive and negative and usually serve to build categories that organize information about the social world.

Stereotyping consists of make generalizations that simplify and group ideas, beliefs and imaginaries about others. These simplifications, of course, are shared. In fact, to acquire their nature it is necessary that they circulate collectively and disseminate, thus becoming codes understood by a large group of people.

And gender stereotypes?

Taking into account the previous definition, gender stereotypes can be understood as social beliefs, culturally and historically constructed, and that live attached to what a large part of society understands as being a man, being a woman or part of the LGBTIQ+ community. That is to say, They refer to the characteristics attributed to a group of people for identifying with a specific gender.

Statements such as “women are more emotional than men” or “LGBTIQ+ people are more outgoing than cisheterosexual people” are gender stereotypes.

The problematic thing about gender stereotypes is that they are so naturalized that we often do not stop to think about the consequences they have had, especially for women and sexual dissidents, but even for men as well.

The existence of hyper-stereotyped imaginaries of masculinity or femininity means that life for those who do not fit into that normative framework ends up being the target of criticism, judgment and persecution.

Additionally, the reproduction of these stereotypes can keep us tied to gender roles and thus greatly limit our possibilities of fulfillment and desire to fully explore our talents and abilities.

What is a role?

We can understand the concept of role from two main conceptions.

On the one hand, from a sociological-anthropological conception, in which the idea of ​​role refers to the way in which a series of values, attitudes and behaviors are culturally assigned to people, depending on the place they occupy in a social structure. On the other hand, from a psychosocial conception, the role would be related to the way in which people act based on the expectations associated with a certain position.

Generally, We can conceive of roles as organizational schemes of behavior, loaded with expected behaviors and specific practices, assigned to people based on the network of interactions in which they are enrolled and the position they occupy in the social world.

What would gender roles be then?

Gender roles, returning to what was previously stated, are all the ways in which gender stereotypes become behavioral expectations, pre-established assignments that end up being incarnated in people as behavioral prescriptions.

In other words, Gender roles are the vehicle through which stereotypes are put into practice. For example, assuming that women should carry out care tasks, or that men should be providers, or that LGBTIQ+ people should be the life of the party, is a form of naturalization of stereotypes associated with gender, a naturalization expressed through through the expectation that people behave in expected ways depending on their gender identity.

Is it possible to transform gender roles and stereotypes?

It is possible that now the relationship between these two concepts is clearer to us. However, what can we do with this information?

First of all, recognize that we were all inscribed to gender norms even before our birth; Thus, many of the ideas we have about what it is to be a man or a woman seem natural and taken for granted.

Assuming this idea, The second step is to begin to denature gender norms. It is worth asking ourselves questions about the socially constructed nature of aesthetic dictates, the ways of relating, love and courtship, the choice of professions, children’s toys, among many other dimensions of life that are crossed by gender.

Finally, after this denaturalization exercise, it will be easier for us to identify gender roles and stereotypes in our behaviors, and in the behaviors we expect from others. The transformation of these patterns also depends on our practices.

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