Gender Expectations: Priority or Just Stereotyping?

What is it about America and it's expectations for the individual's gender, race, sexual orientation, and so forth?  When a human being has a certain body part that determines their gender, are there automatically "rules" for them to follow?  Why is it that a man is expected to pay for himself and his date while at a restaurant?  Many people will most likely answer with something along the lines of "That's just the way it is."  But many fail to put some serious thought into these ground rules of society.  After watching "The Graduate" in my English class, I found that there were several scenes which appeared to have contradicted these expectations.

It is without a question that in an ideally patriarchal society, men tend to have more leadership over women.  Now before I move on, I am not saying that this is always the case in modern society, but it was definitely evident 30 years ago.  The Graduate, from my perspective, tends to go against the grain of what is considered patriarchal.  In this film, it is the woman to takes on the role of being the leader, specifically Mrs. Robinson, as she seduces the much younger Benjamin Braddock.  She is the one who approached him first, and she is the one who helped Ben become more experienced in sex.  Simply stated, Mrs. Robinson is the one controlling the relationship she has with Benjamin.

I believe that the same kind of expectations we hold for certain groups could go with people who have different ethnicities.  Let us look at music for example.  Rock is a genre that most would affiliate white people with, while Rap is a genre that most would affiliate black people with.  Therefore, many of us were quite surprised when famous rapper Eminem made his debut in the late 90's.  A highly successful musician, Eminem had garnered plenty of attention when the world saw that he was actually a caucasian, making music that appeals primarily to a black demographic.

I think that this proves how we tend to put certain groups of people in these little boxes, telling them what they are expected to do, how to act, and how to be.  The above examples prove that it does not matter what your gender or your race is; rather it depends on who the person is.