How different are men and women, really? 3rd

Third Section:

As men and women march into their 40s, Menopause gradually creeps on to them. Due to the sudden declination of hormones and testosterone, it may cause several uncomfortable experiences. Menopause forced women’s menstrual periods to a stop and generates symptoms including hot flushes, sweating at night and frequent needs of urinating.

However, menopause isn’t just about the women. In Taiwan, middle aged men are suffering from the loss of bone mass, mood swings and sometimes the frustration at work or business failure. It’ common of them to keep their feelings to themselves for they are the support of the family, role model of kids. However, if they don’t learn to release their emotion appropriately, they may start to rely on alcohol or cigarettes in exchange of relaxation, which might cause health problems or even a crack on the family relationship. In this case, men and women may be born biologically different in the beginning, but are getting more and more similar as they get older.

As children grow older, passing adolescence and reaching adulthood, some tend to start their own family and have kids. Traditionally, how a father treats his children is much different to the mother, for most of the fathers are known as the financial support in families. Therefore, male parents don’t have much free time to spend with their kids, and some even grow distant toward their own blood.

Father is generally considered the head of the family. If the mother doesn’t work, it’s left up to the father to be the provider, and also serving as the protector by making sure that the household is safe. In order to satisfy these two roles, most fathers give the image of strict and harsh.

Though both mother and father play crucial roles in the developments of children, mothers are often more associated with the softer side of a child, like love, affection, the sharing of inner problems and identity. While a mother run the household, which includes cooking meals for the family, doing laundry, cleaning and making sure the children have whatever they need for the day, these responsibilities provide a good chance for the mother to bond with their sons and daughters, expressing marital love and warmth. And that’s the opportunity that most fathers lack.

It was said that the mother’s love is boundless, imperative in the growth of a child, especially in the psychological development of the minds; whereas a father is often more associated with the harder side of the child’s development, guiding them to be a stronger person. Therefore, a father is known to provide physical protection of a child while a child finds it more secure with the mother, and the joint effort of both is indispensable in the path to bringing up a good child.

As male and female take up different roles in the household, it’s common of the two sexes to excel in different regions. However, situations of “same job, different wages” occur frequently at offices, and women are often the victims. This kind of gender inequality holds two main disadvantages against women: wage discrimination and the glass ceiling.

Literally, wage discrimination is the situation when workers with the same abilities do the same amount of work, but get paid unequally. And it’s often the women who get paid less. According to the research from the agency of human resources, the average of women’s wage is less than that of men’s by sixteen percent in 2013 in Taiwan. This kind of wage difference can be supported by the human capital theories and different social status.

The human capital theories point out that experiences, educational degree, knowledge and personal skills are the potentials that an employer values most. Therefore, many factors can lead to the difference of wage, such as the higher average level of men’s education, and stronger physical abilities.

It’s recorded in the history books that most of the time, men held much more power than women, and that the male possessed higher social status than the female. This kind of unequal power distribution led to the later composition of gender stereotype that male are stronger and the advantaged.

Furthermore, men’s grip of power results in another problem: glass ceiling. It’s described as “the unseen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.”(Federal Glass Ceiling Commission) And this kind of incorrect concept partly barricades woman off the chance to a promotion.

Traditionally, we would encourage women to stay home and take care of children; and the men to go out and earn money. This is just another method of strengthening man’s power and lower woman’s social status. Yet, due to the popularization of education and the spreading of knowledge economy, we should focus on the ability of a person instead of one’s gender. Even though men and women are born physically different, the advance of technology and notion are bringing them to the same starting line.