Introduction
Gender role is a colossal pillar of every society, and although nowadays, a shift from assigned and stereotyped gender roles is more prominent, they still significantly affect people’s lives. A gender role is a way to indicate which behaviors are acceptable and appropriate based on a person’s gender or even appearance. In many societies, males and females traditionally adhere to different gender roles. Various immigrant groups have not been an exception to the influence of this phenomenon.
Gender Role Differences in European Immigrant Groups
Historically, the lifestyles of women were wildly different from those of men. Women were considered more critical to the household than having a fulfilling job or public life (Healey and Stepnick 87). Therefore, women were often less educated and could not easily possess high leadership positions or profitable jobs. This disbalance also had an effect on immigration. Because of the education barrier, many women would face problems learning a foreign language. Having moved to another country, they conserved their cultures and traditions more strongly due to their less social disposition. In addition, while women did play an essential role in the process of immigration, that role differed from the roles that men played. The role of an immigrant woman was the role of a wife, a mother, and a supporter.
Female immigrants experienced immigration quite differently from each other; the circumstances of their transfer and the challenges they faced mainly depended on their native society. Some women had to travel to another country only after their husbands had settled there, and some women took part in the first wave of immigration. For example, famine forced women to leave their homeland to seek work. They had to do it since it had become increasingly difficult for them to marry and find jobs at their old place of residence (Healey and Stepnick 86). For women who were tied by marriage, work was also a large part of living. Because immigrant men could not always solely support their families, women and children had to contribute. This contribution varied depending on their culture; for example, women of Italy were prohibited from working outside of the home by the patriarchal nature of their culture. Eastern European Jewish women had a different pattern of assimilation; in particular, they worked in shops with their families (Healey and Stepnick 86). Even when having a job and being removed from old cultures, women were still bound by its influences and patriarchy.
Gender Roles and Sojourners
If presented with the need to make a guess, I would say that men would be more likely to be sojourners. Since the points mentioned above stated that women were often followers of their husbands who decided to immigrate, it would be logical to assume that men were the majority among sojourners. Men were the ones who made decisions of that kind, so it would be up to them to determine the ways their families were to assimilate.
Conclusion
In conclusion, gender roles have played a considerable role in the ways that women were assimilated in the process of immigration. For women, it was more acceptable to take care of the household and work purely to support their families and not out of ambition or hopes of fulfillment. However, some women did travel abroad not as followers to the men in their kin. Given that the gender role that was assigned to women at that time was the role of supporter and follower, I am of the opinion that more men than women were sojourners, as it was their decision to make.
Work Cited
Healey, Joseph, and Stepnick, Andi. Diversity and Society. SAGE Publications, Inc., 2019.