“A stethoscope looped around her neck like a shining silver necklace” (Ng 95).
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The quote above is from Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You and highlights the system of gender roles. Systems are underlying themes in the novel that many plot events are connected to. In the novel, the system of embracing or opposing conventional gender roles is apparent. Marilyn, a young woman, dislikes gender roles while James, Marilyn’s young husband, embraces gender roles. Marilyn’s and James’s upbringing and experiences with gender roles influence their present, adult notions of gender roles.
As a child, James witnessed his mother defy gender roles and work to help her family make ends meet. James remembers, “his mother rising early each morning […] massage oil into her calloused hand, trying to soften them, and his father would leave the room, ashamed” (Ng 79). James learned from his father’s shameful reaction that supporting the family is the man's job, not the woman's. James refuses Marilyn’s request to work because he wants to conform to gender roles and does not want other people to think that, “he couldn’t make enough — his wife had to hire herself out,” (Ng 79) similar to what people thought of his father.
On the contrary, Marilyn’s mother is a home economics teacher who often resembles a real version of Betty Crocker. Marilyn’s mother wants Marilyn to grow up to be the perfect housewife: sporting pearls, baking cakes, and sewing clothes. However, Marilyn wants to break gender roles and take part in more masculine classes like wood working than home economics. When Marilyn tries to switch into wood working, she is refused because she would, “be very distracting to the boys in the class” (Ng 27). The men who study alongside Marilyn in a college level laboratory always try to help her because they think that she is incapable of performing the same tasks men perform. The people who believe that Marilyn is better off in the kitchen rather than in the lab are the people whose attitudes push Marilyn to break gender roles to show that women are just as capable as men.
Everything I Never Told You exemplifies how men are more comfortable to accept gender norms because men are not oppressed from certain careers. Nowadays, women advocate to break gender roles because women are discouraged from pursuing professions that are considered too “masculine”. Past experiences with gender roles effect one’s feelings towards them. While some women are content with a sterling silver necklace around her neck, other women dream of a stethoscope around her neck as a similar symbol of success and accomplishment
For a more in depth discussion about gender roles, watch this Ted Talk by a fifteen year old girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R_JX0qRV-w
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