Gender Roles In My Family

There are 4 boys and a girl in my family. The only female among us is the 4th child and she was born when we were all grown up. My elder brother and I grew up under the care of my grandmother, She had no female child with her. So we(the boys) stood in place of both the male and female gender when it comes to house chores, there was no room to make us feel like there were certain roles designed for the male child and the female.

Even though I was pampered to a level, I was not exempted from doing the chores that others did. I was taught how to cook, I did the sweeping, I washed my clothes and that of my grandma, I joined her to go fetch firewood in the bush. The only thing we never learned was how to sieve grains from their chaffs, it seems that ability was bestowed to the females. Since we had no female among us, we took the place of both the male and female , but one thing we were never allowed to do as male was sieve grains.

Coming to my mom's place, the roles of gender are partially considered when it comes to certain responsibilities even though every one of her children can cook, wash, and make fire from wood. There are times when she tells her(our sister) that the roles are majorly for her to do and we are only helping her because the duties would be much on her especially when time was a factor to consider at that moment in time. But then there are roles strictly for the males and females in my mom's place unlike my grandma's house.

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Except If she's sick, every dinner is prepared by the females, washing of plates is also done by her, carrying farm produce from the farm to the house is done by the females, beating of grains from their stalk is also done by the females , and generally everything that concerns the upkeep at home is done by the females. For the males which are believed to ve masculine, their major role is farming. Women rarely go to the farm to plough the ground except in the case of a widow who has no male child and needs to be fully engaged in farming.

Any task that involves strength is left for the guys and if you know the gbagyi tribe, you'll know one major thing their males are known for is farming. There's always an extra energy males born in this tribe have. However, evolution has changed some of this status quo, my family no longer observes gender roles, except when it pertains to farming. The males are seen as females too and the females seen as male, we do everything without considering whether one is a male or a female and this desegregation has helped every member of the family to be able to cope with doing duties that people from other families don't.

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