Who's to blame?

Our society has been very much influenced from past civilizations about who makes the best parents and who are worthy of respect. dating back many years people have considered women as the primary care givers although men are the ones that define the family as a whole. this notion is called pater familias, which means father of the family, showing that the male figure of the household, no matter the age, is the representative of the family simply from his gender. this idea goes back to roman times and beyond as it is the most common form of definition of family in most societies now. people are considered unfit to be parents if they show traits that are not attributed to positive characteristics in society. women are supposed to be feminine and weak, since they are the mothers and are supposed to take care of the children in their own private sphere. yet, if men show these same characteristics it is not so embraced. gay men are generally associated with having feminine characteristics, so with the logic that society has been using, gay males would make the best mothers, yet it is illegal for them to adopt children because they are uncomfortable with homosexuality and anything that challenges the nuclear family. one way of preventing the adoption of children by homosexuals is by prohibiting their marraige so that if something should happen to one of the parents, the other will lose custody because they are not recognized by the law as a union. society makes us believe that having a gay child is the worst thing ever, worse than death, basically. they portray the image that if there are gay parents then the child will be gay which has no scientifical basis or justification. as said in Sexual Dissent and the Family by Nan D. Hunter "for millions of parents, learning that one's son is gay or daughter is lesbian would be their worst nightmare". we have been brainwashed by the media and politics to think anything challenging the status quo in regards to the family is wrong, and therefore illegal. this is another example of if we find something foreign and unnatural, we exclude it from being a possibility because we are scared. this same concept of the feeling of uneasiness when there is something different present that challenges our previous thoughts is also seen in the household regarding gender roles and assignments. as we studied in class, women and men are typically confined to their certain areas: men are outdoors, women are indoors. because of this idea that women are only allowed to take care of the domain of the house and men are supposed to take care of his domain of the physical labor. it puts a feeling of unnaturalness in our minds when we break free from these barriers. as people leave their domains associated to their specific gender society pressures them to conform back to their own tasks since they feel out of place where they are. this is how things become genderized, such as jobs and the magazines we looked at in class. they constantly showed men in outdoors areas with outdoors clothing with no children or with only their sons as if they were going on a manly expedition. while women are generally labeled by being with their children with no male figure or 1 distant one. this shows the power that men have over their household and that men have freedom to do mostly whatever they want and won't be looked down on for it. they can leave, stay, abuse their wife/children, and wreak havoc and their actions will solely be contributed to the fact that it is his nature, which goes back to the ideas we had before. WOW it all connects!