Genderroles

Why do women care about beauty and men about sports? This is, of course, a huge generalisation, but it's often the case.

I'll draw up a couple of explanations for you:


The Dorothy Smith school: It is how we do gender. Gender is not something you're born with. It's something we construct ourselves eveyday. We "do" gender, based on what we think society expects us to do. This is yet again why women care about clothes and makeup and men care about sports.


Critical sociology +  Foucault: Society puts women in an inferior position where they are forced to look pretty for the boys who have fun watching sports in their sweatpants. The force operates through an internalised demand to look your best. And by the way, men and women are ideologized into obsessing about less important things so that they can be exploited by the upper class.  


Functionalism: women are the keepers of the family. As such they need to look good for their marriage. Men are focused on the outside world. As there are no wars at the moment, men obsess about other ways to achieve physically challenging stuff.


Evolutionary sociology/Social Darwinism: Men are naturally selected to be outside and achieve things. They are the conquerors, inventors etc. Therefore, they obsess about sports. Sports are a way to furnish your physical skills, as an earlier warrior would. It's also competitive, and as such a way to dominate other men. Women are naturally selected to be the keepers of the home, and perhaps also culture. As such, they are naturally selected to care more about attracting men, by being beautiful, and creating a family. 


There are many other sociological traditions for me to draw on. Yet, I think I've shown some of the main trends. The thing is, that I think that at least doing sports, is something one can do to attract women. And for many women, clothes and makeup has a lot more to do with other women than men. For us, being able to dress and do your makeup in a flattering way is an achievement. It gives one credit, in the same way that guys can get credit for being good a footballer. 


I am willing to believe that we choose to try to perfect ourselves in what society rewards us for working on. If I'm, as a woman, a great athlete, it will always be slightly dubious. Yet, men who are great at fashion often gets more credit than women who are good at sports. Heck, they often get more credit than women who are great at fashion. Why is that?


Perhaps it is because men are, as an effect of history, still seen as superior to women. So a man will naturally be seen as better than a woman at everything. Which, naturally, is sad. But it is  also our own fault. It's girls who vote for male Idol-competitors, in stead of women-competitors. Men often vote for men too, even if they think one of the female competitors is hot.  


I'm pretty sure that I agree the most with D. Smith. We perform the actions that we think we're supposed to do. By doing this, we reinforce the stereotype.


Sincerely, me