October 3, 2014 - 15:43
‘Each successive stage and crisis has a special relation to one of the basic elements of society, and this for the simple reason that the human life cycle and man’s institutions have evolved together’ Erikson on his developmental stages (Kroger 21).
What was striking to me was the percentage of students who replied “no, never,” or “none of the above.” I found it very interesting that consistently there was a higher percentage of males who answered with that than females. Of course with the way that society socializes males and females, it is not surprising that females would feel more stressors than males.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/worlds-toughest-job-ad-american-fake-job-interview-23334187
The link is for a video called “The Toughest Job in the World,” in which a fake job is created, and people Skype interview for it. The job is extremely demanding and requires you to work 24/7. At the end of the interview, the interviewees are told that it is unpaid, which leaves some astonished. But at the end of the video we realize that the job described is that of the average housewife and mother. We are socialized to believe that the amount of work that housewives and mothers do is normal, but when taken out of context we realize how much it actually is. And with that reality looming over the heads of women, but not men, it is clear to me why females reported to be more stressed.
Some people like to say that women know how to multitask, so it is more natural for them to do all these things at once. In high school psychology my teacher loved to talk about the differences between a male brain and a female brain, and how that difference makes it so much easier for females to multitask. I think it is just a social construct, and “females” are better at multitasking because they are expected to multitask. If we had the same societal pressure for males then maybe they would be able to do a project and listen to directions (something my high school teacher deemed impossible). However the expectation to do that may just very well leave them stressed.
Erikson’s stage of Identity vs. Role Confusion, which falls around the age of adolescence, a similar age of the students who participated in the survey. In this stage people start to form their identity (Kroger 27). Having an identity as a woman or a man in this context could change your mental health.
Kroger, Jane. Identity in Adolescence : The Balance Between Self and Other. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 1996. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 3 October 2014.
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