Download Contemporary Gender Roles

Contemporary Gender Roles
Consider the
Following
Images
Would you describe them as
MALE?
FEMALE?
NEUTRAL?
Understanding Gender and Gender
Roles
• Sex-refers to male and female in a biological
sense.
• Gender-refers to male or female, often in a
social sense.
• Role-refers to the culturally defined expectations
that an individual is expected to fulfill in a given
situation in a particular culture.
• Gender roles-are the roles that a person is
expected to perform as a result of being male or
female in a particular culture.
• Gender-role stereotype-a rigidly held and
oversimplified belief that all males and females,
as a result of their sex, possess distinct
psychological and behavioral traits.
• Gender-role attitudes-refer to the beliefs we
have of ourselves and others regarding
appropriate male and female personality traits
and activities.
• Gender-role behaviours-refer to the actual
activities or behaviors we engage in as males
and females.
• Gender identity is based on genitalia, and learned at a
very young age.
• Cultures determine the content of gender roles in their
own ways.
• We acquire gender identities at a very young age.
• Gender identity is perhaps the deepest concept we hold
of ourselves.
• Our gender script determines the role you will fulfill
during your lifetime.
• Gender identity-The psychological sense of whether one
is male or female.
Contemporary Gender Roles
• Until the last generation, the bipolar gender role was the
dominant model used to explain male-female
differences.
• 1. According to this model, males and females are polar
opposites.
• 2. Males possess exclusively instrumental traits.
• 3. Females possess exclusively expressive ones.
• 4. While sociologists no longer use this model, American
beliefs related to gender roles have changed little.
• The problem with the view that men and women are
opposites is that it is erroneous. Men and women are
more alike than different.
• Gender schema is one way culture exaggerates
existing gender differences or creates
differences where none otherwise exist.
• Gender schema-is a set of interrelated ideas that
help us process information by categorizing it in
useful ways according to gender.
• Bipolar gender roles-in this model, males and
females are seen as polar opposites, with males
possessing exclusively instrumental (or
masculine) traits and females possessing
exclusively expressive (feminine) ones.
Feminine or Masculine?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Aggressive
Passive
Competitive
Nurturing
Rational
Emotional
Warm
Competent
Dominant
Self-assured
Caring
Gender Theory
• Gender theory is based on two assumptions:
– a. Male-female relationships are characterised by
power issues.
– b. Society is constructed in such a way that males
dominate females.
• Gender theory focuses on:
– How specific behaviours or roles are defined as male
or female.
• The key to the “creation of gender inequality” is
the belief that men and women are "opposite"
sexes.
• Social learning theory, from behaviourist
psychology, suggests that we learn attitudes and
behaviours as a result of social interaction with
others.
• The cornerstone of social learning theory is the
belief that consequences control behaviour.
• 2. Positive reinforcement rewards behaviour,
while negative reinforcement makes it less likely
to recur.
• Cognitive development theory focuses on
the child's active interpretation of
messages from the environment.
• Cognitive development theory stresses the
idea that we learn differently depending on
our age.
• Gender-role learning in childhood and adolescence is
influenced primarily by parents, teachers, peers, and the
media.
• During infancy and early childhood, a child's most
important source of learning is the primary caretaker,
usually their parent(s).
• Immediately after birth, parents differentiate in treatment
between boys and girls.
• Children are socialized in gender roles through four
processes:
• Through manipulation, certain behaviours are reinforced
until children accept their parents' views.
• Through channeling, children's attention is
directed to specific objects.
• Verbally, parents use different words to describe
the same behaviour by boys or by girls.
• Through exposure to different activities or
chores.
• Teachers, as socialising agents, become
influential as children enter day care or
kindergarten-the child's first experience in the
wider world outside the family.
• Peers, a child's age-mates, become especially important
when the child enters school.
• Peers reinforce gender-role norms through play activity
and toys.
• Peers react with approval or disapproval to other's
behaviour.
• Peers influence the adoption of gender-role norms
through verbal approval and disapproval.
• Children's perceptions of their friends' gender-role
attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs encourage them to
adopt similar ones in order to be accepted.
• During adolescence, peers continue to have a strong
influence, but parents can be more influential than peers.
• Gender role learning continues in adulthood and takes
place in contexts outside the family of origin.
• High School/ University-encourages young people to
think critically and to sometimes consider alternatives to
traditional gender roles.
• Marriage-is an important source of gender role learning,
with our partner's expectations shaping our behaviour.
• Parenthood-tends to alter women's lives more than it
alters men's lives; when children are born roles tend to
become more traditional.
• The workplace-has different expectations and
opportunities for men and for women creating different
attitudes toward achievement.
Gender Matters in Family
Experiences
• Traditional gender-role stereotypes ascribe traits to one
gender but not the other, with men showing instrumental
traits and women showing expressive traits.
• Central features of the traditional male role, regardless of
ethnicity, include dominance, work, and family.
• Males are generally regarded as more power oriented
and demonstrate higher degrees of aggression.
• Traditional men see their primary family function as that
of provider and are more often confused by their
spouse's expectations of intimacy.
• Traditional white female gender roles centre around
women's roles as wives and mothers.
• African American gender roles were influenced by their
enslavement and oppression. The woman was often the
worker and the caretaker. They were very much seen as
the property of their husbands- this is something that
stemmed from enslavement.
• Contemporary gender roles are evolving from
traditionally hierarchical gender roles to more egalitarian
and androgynous gender roles.
• Women are increasingly taking on the roles of employed
workers and professionals, although these may conflict
with parenting.
• Record numbers of women are choosing not to have
children because of the conflicts it creates; this is less
true for women from ethnic and minority status groups.
• Women have greatly increased their power in decisionmaking, but husbands continue to have more power in
actual practice.
• The mutually exclusive division of traits as either male
(instrumental) or female (expressive) is breaking down.
• Men are expanding their family roles beyond
"breadwinning": Many of those in the evolving Men's
Movement share the beliefs of feminism.
CONSTRAINTS OF
CONTEMPORARY GENDER
ROLES
• Although substantially more flexibility is offered to men
and women today, contemporary gender roles and
expectations continue to limit our potential.
• Men are required to work and support their families
rather than have the same role freedom to choose to
work as women have.
• When the man's roles of worker and father come into
conflict, it is usually the father role that suffers.
• Men continue to have greater difficulty in expressing
their feelings and may be out of touch with their inner
lives.
• Contemporary men still expect, and in many cases are
expected, to be dominant in relationships.
• Research suggests that the traditional
female gender role does not foster selfconfidence or mental health: Both men
and women tend to see women as less
competent then men.
• Differences in gender roles have created
what Bernard calls the "his" and "her"
marriage: Each gender experiences
marriage differently.
ANDROGYNOUS GENDER
ROLES
• Androgyny refers to the state of combining male and
female characteristics.
• Androgynous gender roles are characterized by flexibility
and a unique combination of instrumental and
expressive traits.
• Individuals who are rigidly both instrumental and
expressive, despite the situation, are not considered
androgynous.
• Androgynous individuals and couples appear to have a
greater ability to form and sustain intimate relationships
and adopt a wider range of behaviors and values.
• Contemporary gender roles are still in flux: Few men or
women are entirely egalitarian or traditional.