Gender Roles

Hey!

So, this week was a pretty interesting topic, gender roles. It was interesting to learn about what male and female contribute to relationships, as well as, seeing how it fits into God's plan. 

We watched this video "John Stossel, Men, Women, and the Sex Difference." Which was a fascinating video on finding out if we can raise children the same, will they still end up either girly or tom boy. The did many researches where they put a group of boys and girls in a room with both "girl toys" and "boy toys" to see if the girls would go for the boy toys or the girl toys and vice versa. The conclusion was the girls would go for the Barbie’s and pink toys and the boys would go towards the building blocks or race cars. This research wasn't convincing evidence for some, so they interviewed parents who had both sexes of children and asked if they raised their kids in knowing they were a girl or boy. The families that said they would raise the kids equally and without boy or girl titles, still would go for the toys that are towards their sexes. Some still argue through that their environment changes them, by the tv shows kids watch or clothes selections at stores.

The main question was being most of us born into this stereo type of liking the toys

or color according to sexes or if are environment change us into liking what we should. The conclusion throughout this video was that we truly are born this way, and it is wired into us. It is a part of God's plan for us to be boys and girls. It reminded me of a video from lds.org called "Gender is an Essential Characteristic." (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-132-gender-is-an-essential-characteristic?lang=eng).  In this video, there was a clip from a talk, which talked about how God has a plan and a part of that plan is each of us are by design made into men and women. Which, reminded me of the “A Family Proclamation to the World” and says, “ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” Now, I don’t know what everyone’s personally purpose is on this Earth, but I do have a testimony that we truly are here for a purpose and that through prayer, ponder, and following the commandments that we can find that purpose and work our hardest to know how it fits into God’s plan for each of us individually.

After seeing how important gender is and how each are very different, have you ever noticed how gender effects the family role? How mothers naturally are more nurturing and fathers tend to be more of the bread winning roles in the family? How girls tend to be more emotional while boys are more destructive? It was interesting thinking upon this and my family, and seeing how my mother always more nurturing, not only to our family but to others at church or at work. While my father enjoyed his role of providing and caring for our family. Think back on your family roles and how gender played a part in them. It is amazing to see how our natural instincts are exactly how God made us, when in the Family Proclamation it says, “THE FAMILY is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan... By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.” As we see, we are a part of God’s plan and are built in the ways that God attends us to be male and female. The way we are born and act are all a part of God’s plan.