Although there is evidence that teenage girls who adhere to a traditional view of femininity are more depressed, I think this has more to do with the number of women who attack that type of femininity over the gender role itself. There's nothing wrong with wanting to get married and be a stay-at-home mom, the problem is when people tell you that's what you should want and do and that anything else is a failure. The same goes for traditional views of masculinity, taking pride in manual labor isn't wrong, but believing you're only worth it if you're the sole breadwinner is harmful when that's almost impossible for that to be the case. This puts social workers in an interesting position because while we use the person-in-environment model to help people, we also have our own biases when it comes to gender. The person-in-environment model allows us to look at an individual's culture, socioeconomic status, and all the other factors and help them address the gender roles expected of them or help them define what they want their gender roles to be. On the other hand, we cannot ignore that our society is still conservative and that an individual choosing to express their gender in a certain way can lead to many reactions that the individual faces.
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