Gender
Samuel R. Mathews, Ph.D.
Psychology of Adolescence
Understanding Gender
• Early Perspectives: Psychoanalytic (e.g. Freud)
– Essentialist Perspective: knowing one’s biological
sex allowed others to make broad generalizations
– Females were seen as fundamentally different
from males
• Contemporary Perspectives: Social/Cognitive
(e.g. Bussey & Bandura, 2004)
– Understanding gender is grounded in biological,
socio-cultural, and individual experiences
– Females and males share many common
attributes, potentials, and abilities
Developing Gender within Cultural Boundaries
• Gender is a product of socialization
– Self regulation
– Role preparation
– Sources of meaning
• Socialization can lead to individualistic or
collectivistic orientation
– Broad Socialization: many choices left to the
individual
– Narrow Socialization: few choices typically
controlled by tradition, culture, religion,
generational status
Developing Gender within Cultural Boundaries
• Gender differences and Traditional Cultures
– Females and Narrow Socialization
•
•
•
•
Typically have limited contact with peers
Linked to tasks related to child care & homemaking
Little freedom for free exploration beyond the home
Linked to value of “purity & domestic arts”
– Males and Broad Socialization
• Typically less contact with family and more with peers
• Linked to tasks for providing, protecting, and
procreating
• Greater freedom for exploring adult male roles
• Linked to individual decision-making
Developing Gender within Cultural Boundaries
• Risks for transgression of traditional gender
roles:
– Females: isolation, injury, death
– Males: isolation, ridicule, injury, death
• Risks not necessarily limited to so called
traditional cultures
– E.g. Matthew Sheppard case
• Marriage is frequently arranged formally or
informally by parents/brokers
Adolescents, Gender and early U.S. History
• Gender roles and socialization based on many
of the traditional and essentialist beliefs:
– Women were weaker
– Women were to comply with narrow socialization
of purity and piety
– Women were to comply with male ideals of
attractiveness
– Civil rights grounded in a patriarchical system
– Socialization based on narrow rules and restricted
social organization grounded in those narrow rules
Adolescents, Gender and early U.S. History
– Males’ gender role and social traditions have
evolved across US history
– Moved from a collectivist (communal manhood)
to individualist view (passionate manhood)
– Socialization has move from broad to more
narrowly defined system in many domains
– Characteristics of independence, assertiveness,
and other characteristics associated with
masculinity have persisted
Socialization and Gender
• Gender Intensification
– Across late childhood and adolescence, perceived
differences between masculinity and femininity
become more pronounced due to increased
pressure
– Highest among those in so called traditional
cultures
– More recent research indicates that intensification
is greater for males than females
– Socialization toward traditional roles tends to
increase gender intensification (e.g. family)
Socialization and Gender
• Sources of socialization:
– Family (traditional/non-traditional parental
models),
– Peers (subtle cues, selected activities, etc), &
– School (formal/informal curriculum, teachers’
subtle/intentional cues, rules/dress codes)
– Broader cultural signals (prohibitions on roles
based on sex/gender)
Socialization and Gender
• Sources of socialization
• Media (magazines pg.132, MTV, internet)
– Magazines focus on:
» Physical appearance
» How to “get a man”
» Photos tend to focus on sexuality
Gender Socialization and Problems
• Problems typically associated with
socialization forces:
– Body imageExtreme dietary and exercise
practices
– Behaviors Boy’s Aggressiveness (protect,
provide, procreate)
– Gender-inappropriate behavior/appearance is
typically met with ridicule, aggression, & isolation
Cognition and Gender
Kolhberg’s Cognitive Developmental Theory of Gender
• Gender is a fundamental way of organizing ideas about the
world
Age 3
Understand
themselves as
being either male
or female
Age 4 or 5
Identify things as
appropriate for
either males or
females
Age 6 to 10
Perceptions of
gender become
less rigid
Age 12 to 16
Perceptions of
gender become
more rigid –
gender
intensification
As adolescents become more capable of reflecting on these issues
they become more concerned with compliance to gender norms
for themselves and other.
Cognition and Gender
• Cognitive development from concrete through
formal operations can account for some
changes in gender understandings
• Experience and development of a gender
schema account for major parts of our gender
understanding.
Sandra Bem: Gender Roles
• Bem: stereotypes and cultural practices reflect
gender-specific attributes
– Instrumental traits attributed to masculinity
– Expressive traits attributed to femininity
Sandra Bem: Gender Roles
•
•
•
•
Feminine expressive, collective
Masculine instrumental, individualistic
Androgynous balance of each
Adolescent females who are androgynous
tend to have more peer acceptance and
higher sense of self esteem/self efficacy
• Adolescent males who are more masculine
tend to fare better
• WHY???????
Gender Roles in Minority Groups
• Impact of gender roles difficult to unravel
from impact of minority status
– Minority in light of political, economic, & social
power
– Differences in gender roles between minority and
majority cultures likely due to the interaction of
multiple factors
– Beyond racial differences, what other minority
groups might yield differences in gender roles?
Gender Stereotypes in Emerging
Adulthood
• Stereotype: beliefs about others based on
group membership rather than direct
experience
• Stereotypes can serve two functions:
– Descriptive
– Prescriptive
Persistence of Gender Beliefs
• …the more a nation believes in the stereotype
of the scientific male (even unconsciously),
the greater the gap in performance between
boys and girls in both science and math.
(Nosak, 2009)
Understanding Sex Differences
• Even when gender difference exist between
males and females
• the portion of the two bell curves that
overlap is much
• greater than the portion that is distinctive to
• Even when gender difference exist between males
and females the portion of the two bell curves that
overlap is much greater than the portion that is
distinctive to either gender and likely within test
error
Persistence of Gender Differences
1.
Gender schemas tend to shape the way we notice, interpret
and remember information according to our expectations
about genders
2.
Social roles for males and females enhance or suppress
different capabilities (social roles theory)
3.
Differential gender socialization leads males and females to
develop different skills and attitudes which leads to different
behaviours – the differences in behavior seem to confirm
the appropriateness of the different roles
Gender and Globalization
• Adolescent girls today have opportunities that were unknown
to women in previous eras of Western history
• The proportion of females in fields such as medicine, business
and law are considerably higher than 20 years ago
• However, women tend to earn less money than men even
when they are doing similar work
Gender and Globalization
• In countries outside the West, adolescent girls have much less in the way
of educational and occupational opportunities
• In most developing countries adolescent girls are considerably less likely
than boys to go to a secondary school
• As traditional cultures proceed toward economic development, they may
offer more opportunities for girls
• As economies become more developed and complex, brain matters more
than brawn and men’s physical advantage ceases to matter in work –
women may have more opportunity for different gender roles
• Examine the list of terms and phrases below
and select 6 that you would use to describe an
ideal person—make your list
• In your groups, reach consensus on the 6
terms your group would agree for their ideal
person
Self-Reliant
Athletic
Compassionate
Child-Like
Shy
Tender
Analytical
Individualistic
Dominant
Competitive
Ambitious
Gullible
Loyal
Gentle
Understanding
Forceful
Assertive
Sensitive to others
Cheerful
Defends own beliefs
Affectionate
Eager to soothe hurt feelings
Independent
Has leadership abilities
Aggressive
Yielding
Sympathetic