Gender Roles

Posted by Brittany Karford Rogers (BA ’07), Associate Editor

The opinion paper is a requisite of English 115, a class populated almost exclusively by freshmen. “I don’t know if it’s such a big thing here,” Sini says of her selected topic, “but in Finland--in all of Europe--women do not have children. My violin teacher, for example, told me, ‘Make sure you never become a home mom because that will end your playing career.’”

In her paper, Sini argued that men and women, while equal, still have different roles. “Equality doesn’t mean we’re the same. We don’t act, think, or dream the same,” she says, arguing that the role of wife and mother is on a par with the role of husband and father and should not be abdicated by women. “Both roles are really important. To stay at home doesn’t mean a woman should be tyrannized by her husband, and she doesn’t have to stay in the kitchen. You can go to work, but don’t neglect the role that you have.”