Gender & Cross Cultural Conflict
Everyone is different. They come from different backgrounds and cultures, they look different, they dress different. No two people are exactly the same. A large part of what makes people different from each other is their gender and the culture they come from. These are beautiful differences, but they can sometimes cause conflict in every day life.
Other People Are Reading
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Cultures
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A culture is the society someone comes from. A person who comes from a traditional Chinese household will behave differently than a person from a traditional Mexican household. These differences can sometimes cause rifts in the interactions between people. Michelle LeBaron, a professor at George Mason University, wrote in her article "Culture and Conflict," "Cultural messages, simply, are what everyone in a group knows that outsiders do not know...They are a series of lenses that shape what we see and don't see, how we perceive and interpret, and where we draw boundaries." Cultures, in short, help create people's identities.
Fluctuation
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One cultural issue that can create conflict is stereotypes. While stereotypes are often wrong, they are also problematic because over time cultures change. The way one culture was fifty years ago ,when the stereotype was brought about, may not be the way the culture is today. So, when people make judgments based on stereotypes they are often incorrect and outdated notions.
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Generational Culture
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This is partially the explanation for the reason cultures change over time, but it is also the reason for cultural and gender conflict within a household. As children grow up, they begin to form their own opinions of the world and certain cultural things that were important before are not as important now. Households that are patriarchal or matriarchal, for example, could adhere to ideas that the children no longer want to reinforce as they get older.
Real Life Effects
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At Harvard in 1995, there was a murder/suicide committed. An Ethiopian student murdered her Vietnamese roommate and then committed suicide. Melanie Thernstrom, a graduate student, wanted to use the event as a tool to study gender and cultural conflict. The reactions to the event were a testament to how people see through different cultural lenses. The Vietnamese student's family was Buddhist and assumed that the girl had done something in a past life to deserve what happened to her in this one. And the Ethiopian student's peers were wary of how the incident would reflect on them.
Gendered Societies
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Societies that are patriarchal or matriarchal greatly influence how people react to situations. In the incident at Harvard it was revealed that both girls showed signs of oppression by patriarchal societies. Most Ethiopian students were not even allowed to wear shorts in their gym class because it could be considered immodest. The effect of strongly gendered communities can certainly cause conflict.
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References
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