conception of”feminine” and “masculine.” Much about these conceptions is not biological atall but cultural. The way we tend to think about men and women and their genderroles in society constitute the prevailing paradigm that influences out thinking.RianeEislerpoints out that the prevailing paradigm makes it difficult for usto analyze properly the roles of men and women in prehistory “we have a culturalbias that we bring to the effort and that colors our decision-making processes.”Sexism is the result of that bias imposed by our process of acculturation.Gender roles in Western societies have been changing rapidly in recentyears, with the changes created both by evolutionary changes in society,including economic shifts which have altered the way people work and indeedwhich people work as more and more women enter the workforce, and by perhapspressure brought to make changes because of the perception that the traditionalsocial structure was inequitable. Gender relations are a part of thesocialization process, the initiation given the young by society, teaching themcertain values and creating in them certain behavior patterns acceptable totheir social roles. These roles have been in a state of flux in Americansociety in recent years, and men and women today can be seen as having expandedtheir roles in society, with women entering formerly male dominions and menfinding new ways to relate to and function in the family unit.
