Gender Roles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Gender Roles - Essay Example This paper describes the observations of male and female actions, relationships and behaviours under the experiment held by the author. To conduct the experiment, the author puts together a small shopping list for a local convenience store that has multiple chains across the country and frequently attracts the same overall clientele. The shopping list was to provide a basic reason for his being there as well as an excuse to wander all around the store and make observations without arousing suspicion on the part of the store employees. The ‘shopping list’ also assisted with data collection in that it provided him with an easy checklist for data collection. It was necessary to visit the store two separate times in order to observe a male employee on the floor and a female employee on the floor (i.e. assisting customers). It was as important to observe both a male and a female employee at work in order to determine the role gender played in whether or not a customer would r eceive service as it was to observe the service received by male and female customers. However, because these visits were made during comparable times of the weekday, the number of customers was approximately equal and the demands on the employees’ time were also approximately equal (both had ample time to personally assist each customer that entered the store). In addition, the two employees observed were of similar age range, each appearing to be in their early 20s and both talking with customers and other employees of college issues.