Gender

Gender

Sex- male/female
1. Biological classification of a person, refers to their chromosomes XX or XY
2. Chromosomes influence hormones and reproductive organs
3. Sex DOES NOT vary cross-culturally
Gender- masculine/feminine
1. This is a socially defined term used to describe the roles, behaviours and attitudes of males and females
  1. This leads to expectations about masculine and feminine behaviour
2. Gender CAN vary cross-culturally
Androdgyny
1. Describes a person who's traits are a balance of masculine&feminine.
2. It is MEASURED by BEM'S SEX ROLE INVENTORY (BRSI). Bem believed that androgynous people were more physcologically healthy than those who showed only one type of traits
  1. During development she asked people to rate 200 personality traits in terms of masculin/femininity. She then took the 20 most neut.,fem&masc. to use on the BSRI. articipant would rate themselves on each trait which is then used to calculate their androgyny score
    1. A problem with the BSRI is that it is based on the views of American students in the 70's so might not be valid cross-culturally and in different time periods.
    2. It oversimplifies androgyny - ignores gender related behaviour/activities
  2. Other researchers believe that a high masculinity score is better
Sex/Gender Role Stereotypes
1. This is a widely held belief about the behaviour, attitudes and characteristics expected of males & females
2. Many studies show that adults treat children differently depending on their sex.
  1. BABY X EXPERIMENT
    1. A 3 month old baby was dressed in a lemon babygrow and places in a room with toys (keys, ball, doll). Adults in one condition wre told it ws a girl, in another a boy, and in the third a baby. The adults were observed individually playing with the baby. The results of this showed tht adults changed their behviour depending on whether they thought it wa a boy (ball), girl (doll) and if if it was a baby the response was neutral.
    2. This supports the theory that adults use gender stereotypes with infants
  2. Research also shows that children age ,5,9 used gender stereotypes when asked about brave or caring people in a simple story - saying that th caring people were the women and the brave people were the men.
Cultural Variations in Gender Behaviour
1. Despite cultural variation there are some similarities in gender behaviour - men usually have higher status, women are responsible for child care
2. Research-Margaret Mead
  1. She carried out a PARTICIPANT OBSERVATIONAL STUDY, spending six months lining with three different tribes in New Guinea and recorded the behaviour of males and females in each tribe.
  2. She found cultural differences in gender behaviour. T1: males and females were feiminine and gentle; T2: m&f both agressive and masculine; T3: maes were sentimental and the females were the main providers
  3. This has been criticised as Mead may have showed bias in her research as she wanted to prove that nurture influenced behaviour more than nature. Other researchers who observed one tribe found no evidence of females being dominant.
3. Research by La Fromboise found gender differences in behaviours between three Indian tribes where women were involved in fighting, these findings support nature.

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	Created by ellensmcgee over 10 years ago