What is gender? Different sociologists have given different definitions of gender. However, in its simplest term, gender refers to the socially expected roles and relationships between men and women. For example, boys are expected to be strong, aggressive, and competitive, and girls are expected to be sweet, thoughtful, kind, and treated with care. These characteristics, among others, are what society actually expects from individuals based on their gender, but this does not mean that it is imperative that a girl is feminine or that a boy is masculine, which implies that gender is independent from sex. Robert Stoller, an American psychoanalyst, is the first to have made this observation. Although gender is closely related to sex, they do not have the same meaning. Stoller differentiated between sex and gender by stating that a being's physical characteristics make it male or female as opposed to gender which makes an individual male or female. In other words, it means that sex is what we are born with; whether it is a male or a female and is difficult to change, while gender is the character given to us by society. In fact, nowadays, it is no surprise to see a man acting feminine or a woman acting like a man. Some people are so uncomfortable in their own skin that they want to have sex change surgery. Gender inequality Gender is an important aspect of our social life; it includes power relations, division of labor, symbolic forms and emotional relations (Connell, 2000). Wharton (2005:21) sees gender as a “system of social practices” that gives rise to gender distinctions and maintains them. What Wharton means is that gender involves the creation of both different… middle of paper… through organizations that help improve women's standards of living. Women's participation in community-related activities has proven to be of great benefit to them. Conclusion Gender discrimination existed to a greater extent in the past than in today's society. While the past tells us the story of women of subordinate nature, always dependent on men, submissive to them and who accept the aggressive nature of men and live under their domination at home, today's society tells us the story of the emancipation of women and gender equality. However, we cannot claim that gender equality exists in all families, which brings us to the purpose of this research. The main purpose of this research is to compare gender equality within the household of the past with that of the present and find out to what extent gender equality has been achieved within the household..