Module: Childhood, Gender and Culture
June 25 – 29, 2012
Lecturer: Dr. Elisabeth Stern,
Gender roles and Culture

Society establishes gender roles for us!

Every known society has a gender/sex system, although the components and
workings of this system vary widely from society to society.

The elements of convention and tradition play a dominant role in deciding e.g.
which occupations fit in with which gender roles.

In pre-industrial Europe, the practice of medicine (other than midwifes) was
generally seen as a male prerogative. However, in Russia, health care was more
often seen as a feminine role – and still is the case today.

A person’s gender role is composed of several elements and can be expressed thru
clothing, behaviour, choice of work, personal relationships and other factors.

Gender role norms for women and men vary significantly not only from country to
country, even within a country.

Gender role can vary according to the social group to which a person belongs or
the subculture with which he or she chooses to identify.

The process throuth which we learn and accept roles is called socialization and
enculturation. It works by encouraging wanted and discouraging unwanted
behaviour.

These sanctions by the family, the schools, and the media make it clear to the child
which behavioural norms it ought to follow.

E.g. in CH, typical encouragements of gender role behaviour are no longer as
powerful as they used to be a century ago. (Beispiel: boys don’t cry. Other
exmples…)

According to the so-called interactionist approach, gender roles are not fixed
(anymore), but are constantly negotiated between individuals.

E.g. as a form of protest against the Vietnam War, there were many men who let
their hair grow to a length that had previously been considered appropriate only to
women. They wanted to come across “soft”, not military-like.

In the Seventies, there emerged “the sensitive new age guy”, in appearance and
behaviour not tolerated by main culture twenty years earlier.
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
Another is the “metrosexual”, a male who claims to be born with female grooming
habits. Perhaps all this is simply a rebellion against tradition than forming a
distinct role, but it shows today’s possibilities.

Gender roles were traditionally divided into strictly feminine and masculine gender
roles, though these roles have diversified today into many different acceptable male
or female gender roles

In general, traditional gender roles have become less relevant and hollower in
Western societies since industrialization started some 150 y ago.

Gender roles can influence all kinds of behaviour, such as choice of clothing, choice
of work and personal relationships.

Women choose to be housewives more often than men choose to be househusbands.
o It has been suggested by scientists that biology/hormones plays a role in this,
o and it has been suggested by feminists that it is the result of socially
constructed gender roles (as well as economic pressures).
o Today, many scientists as well as feminists believe that gender behavioural
differences occur because of both factors
o However, some have argued that gender roles themselves are abstractions of
overall differences between men and women. Introducing the idea of
circularity and the idea of the social reinforcement of natural tendencies.
(Judith Butler, US feminist philosopher)
Gender Roles and Feminism
An Example from Europe:
 About 500 years ago, in 1486, two Dominican friars wrote ‘The Witches Hammer’
which became religion’s guide to witch-hunting for 200 years.
 ‘Witch’ and ‘women’ were used synonymously.
 Quote “All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman… It is not good to
marry: what else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a
necessary evil, a natural temptation, a domestic danger, an evil of nature, painted
with fair colors” (zitiert aus: Witches Hammer)
 This book was endorsed by the Catholic Church.

We must recognize the roots of our culture!

Some say, that the centuries long witch hunting in Europe is marked in every
European woman’s brain… with the message, do not behave badly otherwise you
will be burnt, do not stick out of the masses, otherwise you will be burnt…

Quote by Gandhi “Civilization is the encouragement of differences. Civilization
thus becomes a synonym of democracy. Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion
with a view to conformity, is both uncivilized and undemocratic.”
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
Gender roles limit what both males and females can do and force us to be what
others want us to be.

Much of the masculine-or-feminine classification of traits is even silly, e.g. men are
unemotional, women are illogical (prove it!), men are independent (then let them
cook, clean and iron)

Why should submissiveness or cooperation be considered feminine? They are
human traits, not just traits of women.

Sixty years ago, Margaret Mead told us, based on what she observed in other
cultures (Melanesia/Polynesia) that it wasn’t innate for men to be decision-makers
and breadwinners or for women to be subservient and raise children.

Note, how people react to a man who decides to stay home and take care of the
kids!

Gender Roles become internalized as our own self-expectations, guilt may result if
we do not follow the prescribed roles.
Gender Roles of Women

A little history: by the 1960’s “the West” had developed an affluent society – two
kids (thanks to birth control), two cars, TV, dish washers, fast food etc.

An educated woman started to realize that life was more than buying hamburgers
and driving the kids to music lessons or ball practice. They wanted to be liberated.

The Women’s Movement was one of several gigantic ground swells of freedom and
idealism in the 1960s.
Women all over the nations between 20 and 50 joined ‘consciousness raising
groups’ and supported each other to go to college or get a job, to ask their
husbands to help with child care, cooking and cleaning.


Women’s liberation, coupled with a growing concern about over-population of the
world, new birth control methods, equal education for women, and changing
economic times, started the long, slow process of changing the traditional, maledominated family.

About 20% of baby boomers had chosen to be childless.

The biggest ongoing social evolution worldwide is still the fight for gender equality.

Example from the US: gender equality seeks equal education and career
opportunities, equal treatment in the law, finances, politics, sports, equal pay for
equal work etc.

It also seeks to eliminate sex-role stereotyping
o in which women are seen as dependent on and inferior to men,
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o as sexual objects for men to leer at (while the object remains naïve and
innocent),
o as neurotic, emotional, irrational, weak characters needing protection,
o as attractive creatures who wait for the right man to come along, the prince
on the white horse,
o have babies, become good mothers,
o and then have no idea what to do for the last 40-50 years of their lives!
o Legally, in the US, women and black Americans became equal to white men
in the 1960s, but much changing still remains to be done.

It is hard to imagine gender equality
 If you are a woman and your father always dominated your mother.
 If your teachers paid more attention to and encouraged boys more.
 If your church worships a male god, forbids women to become a
priest and says the man should head the family.
 If your culture thinks women are exciting sexual objects, but
emotional, naive, dependent and weak.
 If women are blamed for male violence.
 If your social group thinks women’s looks are more important than
their brains or hearts.
 If 40% of the women have been sexually misused as a child, raped or
nearly raped.

o We have to guard against backlash, e.g. when a woman acts like a man at
work, (= is aggressive, loud, hot-headed, arrogant, demanding and
demeaning) then she is vilified, while a man is more likely to be tolerated
and excused. But, such behaviour is unacceptable regardless of gender.
o Out of 800 top CEOs in the US, only one is a woman. Do we suppose that all
of those 799 CEOs are really better managers? Or, is this gender role
prejudice?
o There is ample evidence that bright, ambitious, able, progressive women are
paying a price for leading the way in a not-yet-egalitarian society, namely,
 self-doubts, depression, eating disorders, headaches, and other
illnesses.

o Some researchers say that when the inequality between man and woman is
resolved, we can attend to other troubling unfairness and other inequities
will come into focus to be corrected. Others say, war will be abolished on the
day when there is equality between women and men.
Gender Roles for Men

The old male sex roles gave power and advantages to males, but also created
problems for men.

Examples: Boys and men are much more free to express anger than any other
emotion.
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
Boys are 3 x more likely to be hyperactive than girls.

And they are more likely to believe their problems are caused by outside factors
(whereas females are more self-blaming).

If you are expected to be superior, always perfectly in control of any situation and
‘cool’ in appearance, it is a constant strain to meet those standards.

Also, if you are expected to be a strong, unemotional, independent, competitive,
and aggressive ‘tiger’ at work, it is hard to come home and be a ‘pussy cat’, being
an interdependent equal, sharing your self-doubts and remorse about conflicts at
work.

Men are saying to women “if you like the drive, intellect, and toughness that gets
me promoted, why do you expect me to be completely different as a dinner
partner? You cannot have both!”

The truth is that some men feel as dehumanized when they are judged by their job
or income or car - as women feel when they are judged by their weight or breasts
or clothes or long legs.

If a man alone is expected to provide well for a family, he will have little time to
relax and enjoy home life. He will have little time to get to know his own children.

Males who adopt extreme macho traits and superior attitudes run the risk of
several major problems. The macho male who suppresses feelings has more health
problems as well as more fragile relationships. (more prone to stress related
illnesses, such as high blood pressure, burn-out….)

Color-blindness, hemophilia, leukemia, dyslexia are more common in males.
 Certain diseases plague women: migraines, gallstones, arthritis, asthma. (In
Central Europe, on the average, women live seven years longer than men).

Men have more deadlier problems like heart disease, strokes and more visual and
hearing defects.

When older men and women have strokes on the left side, where language
functions are thought to be, men are 3 x more likely to become aphasic (have
speech problems). This suggests speech is more concentrated on the left side in
males than in females (= all over, left and right hemisphere).
 Many more males are conceived and then spontaneously aborted.

Certain sex differences start early. Infant girls seem to see faces better and are
more responsive to people than boys are.

Even as adults, research has shown that women can read non-verbal cues and
emotions better than men (except anger).
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
In school, boys are more distractible, have a shorter attention span, show more
aggressive behaviour, and are more visually oriented.
All of these group differences can be overcome by individual efforts, i.e.
o A woman can become a superb combat soldier through training,
o Just like a man can learn to be an empathic listener, and a caring
cooperator rather than a competitor.
What and Who is responsible for generating these gender roles?

The genes influence our physical structure and our health.

Hormones also play a role:
o Estrogen in females seems to produce better health (for reproducing the
species??), especially less heart disease,
o Testosterone in males increases their aggressive response to danger and may
be related to dominance and competitiveness.

AND, we are taught by family and culture that boys should behave certain ways
and girls should be different.

Our parents start teaching us our roles shortly after birth, e.g.
o Boys are cuddled, kissed and stroked less than girls,
o While girls are less often tossed and handled roughly.

In playing with their infants,
o parents mirror the young child’s expressed emotions, but..
o they play down the boy’s emotions,
o while they reflect the baby girl’s expressions accurately.

Boys between 4 and 7 y. must shift their identities from Mom to Dad. In that
process, boys are chided for being a sissy (like a girl) and they are praised for being
tough. Boys start to think they are superior or should be. From then on, schools,
churches, governments, entertainment, and employers reinforce the idea that males
are superior.

Another facet of gender roles is the emphasis in most cultures on women’s
attractiveness. Clothing, hair styling, beauty aids, perfumes, special diets, exercise
and fitness aids cost uncountable hours and billions of dollars. Women agonizing
over every detail of their appearance and men yearning and vying for the most
beautiful play mate they can get.
On Homosexuality

One out of 20 persons is born homosexual, worldwide.

As the wisdom goes today, most probably the decisive factor is the kind of
hormonal discharge in the first and second trimester of pregnancy.
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
Depending on this hormonal composition of the fetus, the child is either 100 %
hetero, 100% homo or any mix in between the two.

It is an invention by nature, it shows the varied mood of nature, homosexuality is
thus neither genetic nor does it happen due to a certain upbringing.

Nobody can influence his biological sex at birth. We can either be hetero,
homosexuell, something in between or intersex.

The Human Rights Convention forbids to discriminate against any sex and sexual
orientation.

Homosexuality: This term has been in existence only for the last 150 years, before
the term „greek love“ was commonly used. But even in ancient Greece where sex
between males was accepted by society, it could only happen across generations, i.e.
an older man with a young man. It was never allowed within the same generation.
If a young man wanted to move ahead in society, he had to be at the sexual disposal
of an older man.

With the establishment of the Christian Church during the Roman Empire, samesex became forbidden and was prosecuted, but during the 15th and 16th century,
there was a very high same-sex rate in the Vatican before this too was heavily
prosecuted.

In general, homosexuals have been brutally prosecuted and tortured over the
centuries. During the Nazi times, they were killed in large numbers in
concentration camps. Until this day, unlike the Jewish people, the Roma and
communists, homosexuals have not been officially recognized as victims of the Nazi
terror.

By 1972, homosexuality was banned from the WHO-List as a „disease“. (World
Health Organization)

There is little historical material about female homosexuality; lesbianism is called
after the Greek island “Lesbos” where the great ancient poet, Sappho, lived 500
years BC with her students.
Over the centuries, the fact that women could give each other pleasure, was
considered either an embarrassement, a joke, or as a compensation for lack of a
real man. Men would take it up as a special challenge and a sign of their particular
sexual prowess “to convert” a lesbian.

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Intersexed and transgendered people = inventiveness of nature!
As long as a person’s perceived physiological sex is consistent with that
persons’s gender identity, the gender role of a person is so much a matter of
course that people rarely even think of it.
Intersexualism….
o It can happen that – for whatever reason – an individual adopts a gender
role that is inconsistent with his or her perceived gender identity.
o When done for fun, e.g. when a man puts on high heels, lipstick, dresses up
like a women – for fun among friends – we laugh. We find much
entertainment in observing the exaggerations or the failures to play the
unfamiliar gender role.
o Highly problematic are cases wherein the external genitalia of a person do
not match how that person feels about his gender identity.
o People assume that if a person has a penis, a scrotum etc, then that person is
chromosomally male (i.e. that person has 1 X and 1 Y chromosome) and
that the person feels like a male.
o A person can have a penis and a scrotum, but is actually a female - with 2 X
chromosomal sexual identity and with normal female sexual organs
internally.
o When that person reaches puberty, “his” breasts may enlarge and “he” may
begin to menstruate, passing menstrual blood through his penis.
o This person may have always accepted a gender identity that is consistent
with his external genitalia – or with her internal genitalia.
o Biological conditions that cause a person’s physiological sex to be not easily
determined are collectively known as intersexuals.
Transgender…:
 Transgender people refuse to adhere to one set of gender roles and
transcend the scheme of gender roles completely, regardless of their
physiological sex.
Transsexualism…
 Where a person who is born as one sex and is brought up in that sex, but
has gender identity of the opposite sex and wishes to live according to the
gender roles associated with that sex. Sometimes they want to be operated.
All this inventiveness of nature shows that the simple picture in which there is a
high degree of consistency among external genitalia, gender identity, and
gender role dissolves into a kind of jigsaw puzzle that is difficult to put together
correctly.
 Such cases of mismatch between a person’s physiology, identity and role are
rare. (1 out of 5000, worldwide. The rate of suicide among these people is
very high.)
 In Western society, there is a growing acceptance of intersexed and
transgendered people.
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

However, there are some who do not accept these people and may react
violently and persecute them.
For the vast majority of people their gender is commensurate with their
genitalia.
Gender as social category
Since the 1950s, the term gender has been increasingly used


to distinguish a social role = gender role
and personal identity = gender identity from biological sex.

Before, it was referred to as “learned sex role”.

By 1980, most writings had agreed on using ‘gender’ for socioculturally
adapted traits.

Most societies categorize all individuals as either male or female – however
this is not universal.

Some societies recognize a third gender – for instance, Native American
Two-Spirit people nd hijras of India and Pakistan.

Such categories may be an intermediate state between male and female, a
state of sexlessness, or a distinct gender not dependent on male and female
gender roles.

Dinka = barren women marry a widow, become the official father of the
children, is not marginalized or chased away from the group

Intersex people = a third sex in the view of some scientists

Gender associations are constantly changing as society progresses: The
colour pink was considered masculine in the early 1900s ansd is now seen as
feminine.

Much controversy exists over the extent to which gender roles are simply
stereotypes, arbitrary social constructions (Judith Butler) or natural innate
differences (some neurophysiologists).
Gender and legal status of a person






A person’s gender as female or male has legal significance
Gender is indicated on government documents
And laws provide differently for women and men.
Many pension systems have different retirement ages for men and women
Usually marriage is only available to different-gender couples.
Intersexual or transgender people complicate matters. What to do with them?
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
Almost all countries permit changes of legal gender status in cases of
intersexualism (personal choice) and for changes of transgender people (those who
were operated into a different sex).
The Process of Socialization and Enculturation

As the infant grows, it learns to modify its demands so that it will meet with success
in its social environment. The infant becomes increasingly able to distinguish what
actions will bring gratification and what actions will be met with no response or
negative response from others.

Cultural variability in child rearing must be seen against the background of
universals that grow out of the biological characteristics of the human organism:
o the needs for physical gratification and
o for emotional contact with others, and
o stages of developmental capacities.
o Thus, socialization must be seen against the different stages of the life cycle.
o Infants are treated differently from children;children reach puberty and
eventually become adults; adults are distinguished as middle-aged and old.
o With each of these changes in status, different roles are assumed and
different kinds of cultural transmission take place.

Every society treats males and females differently. Males and females are not given
the same social-cultural conditioning.


The process of sex role socialization begins at infancy.
Two important processes associated with sex role learning are
o imitation and internalization
o both through identification with a same-sex role model.
o In play, girls most frequently imitate the domestic activities of their mothers
or elder females who stand in this relation to them.
o Boys imitate their fathers or other males.
o This imitation is subtly encouraged along the lines of sex even when it is not
a consequence of direct teaching.
o Girls and boys are both discouraged from imitating activities culturally
considered appropriate for the opposite sex and
o they get rewarded for imitating activities considered culturally appropriate
for their own sex.
o The internalization of gender identification – that is, the inner
conceptualization of self as being masculine or feminine – is tied up with the
playing out of these sex-related activities.

Part of the controversy in the study of sex role socialization (Gender) is the extent
to which the differences that have been found to be related to sex are based on
biology.
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
Since learning begins at birth, untangling the complex interaction between biology
and culture has shown to be difficult – it is a debate that every decade moves back
and forth between the “belief in nature” or the “belief in nurture”.

When adult expectations of children become stereotyped according to sex role, it
may be this expectation even more than possible biological differences, that
explains the differentiation in male and female behaviour and personality.

The complex way in which biology and culture may interact to produce differences
in male and female behaviour is illustrated by the findings that girls seem to have
greater verbal ability and boys greater spatial ability.

If we assume that these abilities have some biological basis, we can also assume that
they would be incorporated into parents’ expectations of children.

They would expect little girls to talk more and the parents might talk more with the
girl.

Parents would allow, reward or even initiate activities in which boys can explore
their environment.

Subtle but persistent interactions with others based on the initial biological
differences may play a large role in explaining some sex-role-related patterns in
adults – for example, the greater success girls have in school (which rewards verbal
ability and social sensitivity) and the superior performance of males on tests of
spatial ability.

In almost all societies small boys are allowed to roam farther from their home than
small girls.

This is both consistent with, and may be a cause of, the superior spatial abilities of
males.

Yet, studies of exceptional girls in one East African society who were allowed to
roam farther from home than was typically the case showed they matched their
male counterparts on tests of spatial ability.

Such findings put as back to a position in which sex role socialization appears to be
best understood in terms of both biological and cultural components interacting in
complex ways.

One useful model for understanding this process may be that socialization practices
act back upon and intensify possible biological predispositions that are different in
males and females.
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Introduction

There must be order and organization for a society to survive, but societies vary
widely in their norms, values and structures.

The members cannot all be forced to follow the rules. A society functions smoothly
only when its members want to do what has to be done.

How does he/she come to want what the group wants, and shun what it
disapproves?

While we are growing up, we are taught openly, subtly, or unconsciously the things
we must know.

Since we as humans have so few instincts, we have to be taught the most
elementary survival skills.

But the more elaborate, if not more important, part of this teaching process
involves the values and behaviour necessary for the perpetuation of the group.

In the process of acquiring this information, individuals also learn to depend on
approval and esteem from their fellows, and to want and approve of the things
other members of the group value.

This teaching process is called socialization and enculturation.

It proceeds smoothly in some societies and with more difficulty or trauma in
others. It is never totally effective, but it is far more so in some societies than in
others.
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Individual and group tasks:
Child Raising
 How are boys raised,
 how are girls raised in your home country, in your region?
Role Expectations: based on personal experience
 mother, father,
 brother, sister,
 teacher F u M,
 boss F u M
 politician, F u M


Famous Men, famous Women in your culture?
Famous for what, why?


“typical” Professions/jobs for men and women in your culture
are boys and girls encouraged to chose one or the other profession in the same or in
a different manner?
Rites of Passages, Initiation Rites
 for boys ?
 for girls ?
Additionally:
 What would you have liked to be different in your up-bringing as a girl, as a boy?
In Writing, small-group work:

A) In the excerpts that I handed out to you for reading (“The Education of a
Samurai Daughter” and “Child Rearing and Personality in Village India”) , take
note of
o what values,
o what behaviours,
o and what beliefs the people try to develop in the child
o and what methods the parents/the family use to achieve their goal.
o Also note,
 who is responsible for different phases of the socialization,
 as well as what differences there are in training and expectations for
different statuses – such as boy, girl – in the society.

B) Write your own personal story of up-bringing, with special focus on being
brought up as a girl or as a boy, with the do’s and don’t’s for boys and girls. (not
more than 3 pages )

C) In the movie “Whale Rider” , note ALL gender roles, gender stereotyping and
culturally conditioned gender-based behaviour, hand-in your analyses in writing.
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Films (showing strong culturally conditioned gender roles and expectations)
“Grease”, 106 Min.
“Bend it like Beckham”, 112 Min.
“The Whale Rider”, 97 Min.
“Billy Elliot”, 106 Min.
June 2012/Elisabeth Stern
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