Kayla woke up happy on the first day of work, and she was ecstatic to get to work and meet everyone. When she first signed up for the job, she saw that they accepted everyone, and she had already been turned down by 4 other corporations, so she was really happy when she saw their help wanted sign. As soon as Kayla was out the door, she started to have a weird feeling, but she ignored it, “ Nothing can ruin today,” she whispers under her breath.

Kayla pulls up to the huge building, and it was so tall that her neck hurt just trying to look at the top. As soon as Kayla walked into the building, she was hit with a smell of fresh suits and men’s cologne. She walked up to the front desk, got her keycard, and went to the 7th floor, where the offices are. As the elevator started to climb, she got that weird feeling again, but this time, it was harder to ignore. As the elevator doors started to open, she pulled herself together and started to walk out the elevator with her eyes closed. Then she came to a stop and opened her eyes. She saw a bunch of men in fresh black suits, some with coffee, some in the conference room, some at their desks with macbooks sitting in front of them. Kayla felt like she didn’t belong in that office, but she sat at a new desk and started to work. 

Some men gathered around the coffee maker by Kayla’s desk and started talking loudly, mostly about their wives and how they belong in the kitchen or how one of their wifes didn’t have a full high school year because they had a baby, and was forced to stay home. Kayla was overhearing this and thought, “What? They need to be better to their wives.” After that, Kayla went home and was scrolling through Instagram when she saw a  certain post; it was a post about gender stereotypes and extreme sexism in the workplace. Kayla scrolled through the post just to see exactly what was happening and she saw that the men that worked at the workplace were being extremely sexist.

 Kayla went to work the next day, but it became worse with her male coworkers; they started to say that she shouldn’t have gotten an education. One of the men changed everything on her desk to pink colored and said she can’t like blue colored things. Then one of the men started talking about how women should be on collars because they can’t control themselves. This all happened over the course of one month and Kayla was starting to believe that she only likes pink, that she didn’t need an education.

The next month, Kayla left the office and looked for a job that didn’t have men running it, but she came up with no luck, so she became unemployed. Because of those sexist men talking down Kayla, she became unemployed and unsure of her purpose. Gender stereotypes can break anything, they can also break people. 

 Gendering stereotypes are believed to have come from the Victorian era and are still around today, but they have changed throughout the decades, from women in the 1950’s having to stay home, with no job, taking care of kids while her husband was the provider for the family, to women in the 1960’s, trying to fight for the right to vote and have more accessibility to the world, to women in the 2020s, most of them teen mothers whose boyfriends left before the baby. Today, youth are conforming to gender roles that shape health risks. In the article, “ This Is What Happens When Gender Roles Are Forced On Kids'', author Emanuella Grinberg writes that, “Adolescent health risks are shaped by behaviors rooted in gender roles that can be well-established in kids by the time they are 10 or 11 years old,” said Kristin Mmari, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.”( Grinberg 1) Teens, or adolescents, are the most prone to hurtful gendering stereotypes. Even though it affects girls, it can affect boys also. In Journal For Adolescent Health’s article, “ It Begins At 10: How Gender Expectations Shape Early Adolescence Around The World, ” Robert W. Blum states '' There is a global set of forces from schools, parents, media, and peers themselves that reinforce the hegemonic myths that girls are vulnerable and that boys are strong and independent.”(Blum 1) This comes to show that this problem should be a problem solved. Due to the effects of gender stereotypes, the media, schools and workplaces should address gender stereotypes because they can have a negative effect on young people and their daily lives. 

 The most common gender roles are reinforced in schools, though media & early childhood. In schools, mainly kindergarten, it is seen as wrong for a boy to wear make-up and nail polish and a girl to play with cars and trains instead of barbies. As they grow older, they have to learn to “conform” with gender roles. In Grinberg’s article, she writes “ This idea starts in early childhood, reinforced by schools, parents and media. Interviews with children and their guardians revealed that the onset of puberty triggers increased reinforcement of pressure to conform to hegemonic sex-typed identities and roles.”( Grinberg 1) Grinberg is trying to re-enforce  that they have to conform to be able to blend in with the pressure.  Gender roles all started in the 19th century, beginning with the general idea that men are supposed to be out in public, in politics or business, and women are supposed to be out of the public eye, taking care of the home. Eventually, these roles started to become more than certain things to do at home. They started to bring in masculinity and femininity and tied them to women and men. Now, this current problem is shown everywhere, media, school, workplaces.  In CHC’s article, “How Stereotypes In Movies And On TV Impact Kids’ Development”, they write “Gender stereotypes in movies and on TV shows are widespread and very influential — teaching children what the culture expects of boys and girls. According to the report, a lifetime of viewing stereotypical media becomes so ingrained it can ultimately affect kids’ career choices, self-worth, relationships, and ability to achieve their full potential.”(1)  CHC’s research concludes that the problem could be in the movies that children and teens are watching. This issue has impacted many people and it continues to do that today. 

Gendering stereotypes can take a toll on young people’s presents and futures. Youth are peer pressured to conform to gendering stereotypes because they have more of a need to fit in, then they separate the two sexes into groups because of high-risk factors for girls. In Rodriguez’s article, “Gender Stereotypes Contribute To Teen Depression And Threaten Equality Globally,” she writes, “Gender stereotypes enforced by the segregation of boys and girls when they reach puberty contributes to significant health consequences including violence, victimization, and depression.”(Rodriguez 1). In Rodriguez’s general article, it shows an issue : mental health problems from gender stereotypes. When you have an issue like conformity, or a wanting to be like everyone else to fit in, you sometimes want to break those rules, and try to break those hurtful stereotypes, but then, you have to conform back again. This is shown in Grinberg’s article,  “A recurring theme in conversations with adolescents and adults was those who defied gender expectations, resulting in “significant sanctions and pressures to conform,” the study said.``(Grinberg 1). Grinberg is concluding that breaking gender stereotypes is hard when they are all around you. This can hurt people, especially their mental health.

 Gendering stereotypes that are portrayed in media, schools and workplaces are forcing them to be gendered. A lot of young men think it’s bad to be sensitive or cry, and a lot of young women think it’s good to be shy and vulnerable. But, this is just what can actually happen when gender roles are forced on kids. Girls can grow up thinking they need a husband to be safe. Boys can grow up thinking they need to be tough and strong, just to live in this world. Boys are always viewed as the “bad guys''. Blum says, “Around the world pubertal boys are viewed as predators and girls as potential targets and victims. Messages such as—do not sit like that, do not wear that, do not talk to him, boys will ruin your future—support the gender division of power and affect while promoting sex segregation to preserve girl's sexuality.”( Blum 1)   Blum is calling this any issue because girls supposedly are viewed as sexual objects to boys, and it’s all about preventing teen pregnancy.  If you had a child, and they eventually made a male friend, would you be worried about your daughter? Many people would say yes, but some would say no. This topic of “ sex segregation,” is mostly embedded in the point of saying “ girls play with girls, and vice versa.” Gendering stereotypes jump from age-to-age, but it mostly happens in the pre-teen or teen years. Gendering stereotypes can affect people’s jobs, their education & even their childhood. In Grinberg’s article, she writes “For young children, it may start as acceptable to cross gender boundaries. But once it becomes clear that a behavior is socially defined as typical for the other gender, “it is shunned out of fear of being ostracized,” the study said.”(Grinberg 1) Grinberg is starting to show that if you do more manly things, and you’re a girl, then you have to stop doing it so you can “conform” with other girls, and vice versa. 

The reason why gendering stereotypes are actually forced on kids is because they know that they will try to conform to fit in. Gendering stereotypes are harmful to young women in the workplace. Sexism is one of those problems that everyone’s heard about, but not everyone has experienced. Gendering stereotypes are way more relevant and hurtful than sexism. It can impact people’s lives, mostly young women. In Rodriguez’s article, she writes “Gender norms negatively impact women’s economic empowerment by influencing ideas of the appropriate roles women and men should play in society, at home, and in the workplace. As a result, women receive less educational, employment, and property-owning opportunities and access to health care, which means they are more likely to live in poverty than men.” (Rodriguez 1)  Rodriguez explains that without the same educational opportunities as men, women are less likely to get a job. Which adds on to the idea that women aren’t supposed to have high-paying jobs. In “ How Sexism follows women from the cradle to the workplace,” Jim Tankersley writes that white women born in parts of the United States with more sexist attitudes are more likely to work and earn less than other women born in other areas. He also writes that “That impact on career and salary continues even if those women move to less sexist areas as adults, a finding that suggests the beliefs a woman grows up with can shape her future behavior in a way that affects her career and salary.” (Tankersley 2) This evidence is building off the idea of the hegemonic myth, the myth that says boys are strong and girls are vulnerable and weak, and they need men to “protect” them. This myth can be so embedded in a young woman’s mind, that she can’t survive without a husband; or in a young man’s mind, that girls need saving and protecting. 

Gender stereotypes have a general negative affect on youth. Although many people have a general sense of the growing mental health crisis, many people don’t know that it’s towards the younger generation, and it’s caused by gender stereotypes. In Rebecca Smithers’s article “Gender stereotypes is harming young people’s mental health,” she writes that “ “Harmful” gender stereotyping has helped fuel the UK mental health crisis afflicting the younger generation, an influential report has warned, adding that it is at the root of problems with body image and eating disorders, record male suicide rates as well as violence against women and girls.” (Smithers 1)  This evidence adds to the idea that gender stereotypes are harmful to youth, and their futures. The fact that the future of our generation is hurting from the biggest problem of our nation is horrid. Even brought on by parenting, gender stereotypes aren’t any better. In Smithers article, she writes “ Warning that stereotyping persists in parenting, education and the commercial sector – notably toys, books and fashion – the commission is calling on the government to “take meaningful steps” to better support teachers and parents and challenge simplistic “pink and blue” labeling in the corporate sector.``(Smithers 2)  This is an issue because everyone ties certain toys or colors to things that shouldn’t be a big factor in the real world. I’ve heard the words' ' Don't play with that, that’s for boys' ' before, and I never knew why I had to stick with my barbies even though I’m interested in cars and helicopters. 

Gendering stereotypes are horribly portrayed in education, jobs and media, and they are harmful to our mental and physical health. Gender stereotypes should be taken seriously because of the effects they can have on men and women, and girls and boys. It can change someone’s future or their actions because of the horrible gender stereotypes that they have hammered in their minds. Children will grow up re-enforcing those stereotypes for their future generations. Children should be able to play with barbies or dolls if they want to, not because of their gender. Children will grow up trying to conform to these harmful stereotypes, and then try to re-enforce them. Schools, workplaces and media should start showing the actual effects of gender stereotypes: mental health problems, problems at workplaces, problems in education. Gendering stereotypes are horribly portrayed in education, jobs and media, and they are harmful to our mental and physical health.