Gender Roles in the Family

 Hello everyone, This week I am going to talk about the importance of traditional gender roles in the family. In the world today, many people think that our biological gender doesn’t matter or that it is a bad thing to want a traditional family and have a traditional role. Because of that, people that believe in traditional gender roles are often looked down upon. For example, my whole life I have always wanted to be a stay - at home mom with a husband who goes to work. I’m always scared to mention that to people because whenever I do, someone tells me that I shouldn’t settle down, that I should want to work and make money and that I shouldn’t have to rely on someone. So now I’m used to thinking that it is a weird kind of thing to want. However, after coming to BYU I and taking classes like this one, I’ve gained a new understanding of families and what the Family Proclamation: To the World means. In it, it says, “All Human Beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premarital, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose”. This quote can be broken into three main talking points.

One, we were created in the image of our Heavenly Parents. That means that all men were created to be like our Father in Heaven, and women to be like our Heavenly Mother. That can be applied to our bodies as well as our minds. This explains the differences between men and women’s brains. In a scientific study they came to the conclusion that there are differences between a woman’s and a man’s brain. A woman's brain has more white matter, which is a type of connective tissue that allows us to make more connections about things such as relationships and memories this allows women to be more “relationship-oriented”. Where for men they have more grey matter, which allows for them to make more logical connections and have better memories when it comes to more factual things. In other words men are more “object-oriented”. In another study that examined the different behaviors between both girl and boy babies. It came to the conclusion that girl babies more often than not stare at peoples faces. It was also proven that within five days of birth that the girls were already starting their speech development just by watching the people around them talk. Whereas the boys would be more entertained playing with toys or staring at objects.

Two, we are BELOVED by our Heavenly Parents. They do not love their daughters less than their sons or vice versa. We are all loved equally. That means that our gender was given to us out of love and the care of our Heavenly Parents.

Third, our gender is essential to who we are and has been since the beginning. In the premortal realm, we were made with our gender in mind. That means that we have been this way since the beginning of time and will be this way through the eternities. Our gender is not accidental. Every part of us was divinely planned, including gender. I know that gender is given to us by our Heavenly Parents and that we all were given the gender that we have for a reason and that we are all beloved sons and daughters of God.