The Impact of Gender Segregation on Individual Identity and Societal Roles

This paper explores the impact of culturally influenced gender stereotypes and norms imposed on individuals. Female and male struggles already exist in the real world, and societal implications of gender roles make these struggles harder to combat. Although significant efforts have been made to promote gender equality and fair treatment of men and women, culturally enforced norms continue to reinforce these stereotypes, which harm the efforts of gender activists who struggle to achieve structural equality in the system. From birth, individuals are conditioned to internalize the segregation of gender roles and abide by the societal norms, making it harder to unlearn the conditioning and accept a liberal approach to equality. At a young age, in several parts of South Asia, women noted that they found their body as burdensome and at risk and felt the need to cover up, while in parts of Baltimore, women claimed that their primary asset was their bodies and they need to look appealing—but not too appealing (Luscombe, 2017). This duality, when it comes to gender expectations, shows the social dynamic of how different cultures condition individuals to pertain to gender roles differently, while also demonstrating that these norms intersect at a common fact that gender segregation has harmful effects.