Heroism: Gender Roles and Heteronormativity

The empirical concern in "The Heroism of Women and Men" (Becker & Eagly, 2004) is to decipher the extent to which cultural associations with heroism correspond to actual heroic behavior within 'natural' contexts. The authors operate under the idea that two necessary conditions for heroic behavior include risk taking and "service to socially valued goal(s)." The difficulty with their treatment of heroism under this paradigm is that they fail to account for acts which are not generally thought of as "heroic", possibly due to a lack of spontaneity, but ought to be considered heroic in an equally robust sense. For instance, the act of giving birth involves extreme pain, risk (emotional, physical, economic), and in many instances ought to be considered as satisfying the "service to socially valued goals" condition.