about gender roles

Rubens, The Judgement of Paris, c. 1638.

i took a class once called the psychology of gender. it was a discussion class based on some readings we did. by the looks of my poll so far, my readers tend to be like average people who think that gender difference come from biology; as though they are decreed from God and apply to all humans.
Caravaggio Narcissus Caravaggio Narcissus
this actually is not the case. the gender roles that generally apply to western society tend to place men in the position of power and ownership over women. i must assert that these general/prescribed roles do not apply to every person. increasingly some people do not followthe gender roles imposed on us by society from an early age... effectively 'brainwashing' us to subscribe to established gender roles.

here is in interesting quote from the previously linked article:

a "Sex/gender system [is] a set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality in to products of human activity, and in which there transformed sexual needs are met."

just because men and women are biologically different does not prove that they are different as individual psychologies or beliefs about gender roles.

as an aside: the above artwork, by jenny saville demonstrates how differently shaped bodies can be beautiful. this picture is also a demonstration of a crotch-shot as art and is not meant to arouse, obviously. at least not for normal people.