Gender equality is one of the most important aspects of life in democratic Western countries, where women and men receive equal opportunities and responsibilities in various spheres of life. Regardless of gender, citizens are given the same rights in employment, they successfully combine family life and career. The concept of “gender equality” appeared thanks to UN experts, and now it is actively discussed not only in developed countries, but also in developing third world countries.
Gender approach
For millennia, men and women had to fulfill various social responsibilities, and the fair sex almost always faced discrimination. The modern gender approach is becoming a complex sociocultural designer, reflecting the differences between people who are different in behavior, social role, emotional and mental characteristics. According to this approach, gender is usually understood as a model of sociocultural relations between women and men in various institutions of modern society.
Features
In the 70s of the twentieth century, gender equality was perceived only as women getting equal rights in political, social and economic life, and the absence of discrimination of the fair sex in relation to men. Subsequently, gender roles shifted somewhat, and residents of democratic countries revised responsibilities in the family, and this is especially noticeable in Sweden. So, in most families of this Scandinavian state, the role of mother and father in raising the younger generation becomes the same, and a man can take maternity leave to care for the baby, and a woman can build a successful career and provide household members with material support.
Concept
Gender equality, the features of which are spelled out in the UN normative acts, stipulate that the peoples of individual countries should reconsider “outdated” values and views. For example, these may be traditions regarding the consideration of a woman as a “keeper of a hearth”, a mother and wife, spending free time in the kitchen and raising children.
On the other hand, gender roles are often viewed in a different way. So, this concept also affects the sexual orientation of a person without taking into account his biological and anatomical features. This situation applies to same-sex couples seeking to build sexual relations, and the laws of European states provide for the possibility of formal marriage of two men or women. In domestic practice, lesbians and gays do not yet have the opportunity to register a marriage, but in practice every year more and more same-sex families appear in which one member plays the role of “breadwinner” and the other plays the role of “housewife”.
Parenting
The theory of gender equality affects the upbringing of the younger generation, as well as the education of schoolchildren and students. So, for children of both sexes from early childhood, the same approach is taken without taking into account the stereotypes that have accumulated over the centuries. In addition to the joint training of boys and girls, they are taught to behave in exactly the same way, without taking into account the social roles that they will have to play in adulthood.
Kids from kindergarten age get used to the "secondary" biological characteristics in relation to their own attitude. Therefore, subsequently, they do not have gender self-identification by gender, which leads to the fulfillment of the social role that has been played by women or men since ancient times. So, thanks to such education, girls will not build relationships with boys, showing their own defenselessness, humility and expressing their willingness to obey.