Even before a child is born, there are certain requirements already placed upon him or her, relating instinctively to his or her gender. Once a girl is born, she is paraded with pink, Barbie dolls, all other peace-promoting toys, growing older to take on a rather typical external appearance of long hair and tighter fit clothing for the most part, leading a job (if any) in a field where she is expected to work. To put it more clearly, a girl is rarely seen in construction sites on the streets, not because she is incapable of doing so, but because the idea seems so absurd that she does not even allow it to come to mind. As a boy is born, however, he is surrounded with darker shades of blue, monster trucks, a few building blocks here and there, and God forbid a doll ever cross his hands. As he grows older, he takes on the appearance of short hair (usually), loose-fitting appropriate clothing, and the job of some sort not atypical to the average male, i.e. possibly one expressing the immense influence the toys he played with at a young age (monster truck and building blocks and not Barbies) made on him: a job "not fit" for a woman.
Yet one day a harmless bystander is standing on the corner of a street, seen observing a construction worker whose back is turned to the individual, shouting out orders to those the worker is seemingly managing. The bystander takes a moment to observe the back of the worker: short hair, a blue plaid shirt, baggy jeans with a few unintentional tears and paint marks. As the worker goes further out of sight and begins to hammer nails into the plank of a building, the curious individual ends his examination, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. It is a mere few minutes later when the construction worker reappears, this time in a form where his face is visible. The bystander glances up. The worker is a women.
Evidently, it is possible for an individual in society, surrounded from day one with "gender roles" and expectations, to turn out opposite of what he or she is "supposed to be". Yet it is not often when the "construction worker", the "plumber", the "scientist", or even the "doctor" is a women. And it is not often when the "designer", the "hairdresser", the "painter", the "cleaner" is a man. It is true that what society expects unconsciously plays a roll on individuals, as they are born into what is proposed as "correct" from day one, mindlessly adapting and conforming. There are select individuals who, at an age where they gain a more substantial ability to think for themselves, manage to question such expectations and conformity, specifically related to gender roles in this case. A girl may never aspire to be a construction worker from a young age, only because she does not consider it as a task she is able to undertake or associate with. A boy will rarely be seen with a passion for designing clothing, because he is "not allowed" to partake in "girls' jobs". Yet when attaining awareness of such preconceived expectations and being able to fully consider the possibilities of life independent of gender, there are those few individuals who are "the women construction worker".
That is the case on a specific scale. Gender roles have the ability to affect an individual until he or she gains awareness of such expectations. However on a larger scale, the concept of gender roles has, almost unconsciously, cemented a loose interpretation of who the women and who the man should be. This, although able to be broken but very rarely done, can be perceived as somewhat of a relation to the nature of man and the nature of woman, and is, therefore, a natural part of society. It may be inborn, that a woman, in a general aspect, conveys a certain "softness", of which the subtle opposite is seen in men. Yet the extent to which societal expectations have altered and exaggerated such natural concepts is where the issue lies, and where the confusion often starts to arise, once a boy feels a slight affinity towards the color pink.
